Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer dismissed a few things floating on the internet. Among them is the idea that the Xbox One is holding back the Xbox Series X.
Rumors are circulating the internet about Xbox One, holding down its next-gen console. These come as titles on the Series X are still playable on Xbox One. Phil Spencer waved these off, pointing to the success of PC games on both platforms.
Spencer uses PC gaming market as an example of innovation
In an interview, the Xbox boss canned the idea of games held back. He called it “a meme that gets created by people who are too caught up in device competition.”
Spencer talks about how the PC market always has the best version of a game. At the same time, he also talks about how the same game is playable on weaker hardware.
“I just look at Windows,” Spencer notes. “It’s almost certain if the developer is building a Windows version of their game, then the most powerful and highest fidelity version is the PC version.”
“You can even see that with some of our first-party console games going to PC, even from our competitors, that the richest version is the PC version. Yet the PC ecosystem is the most diverse when it comes to hardware, when you think about the CPUs and GPUs from years ago that are there.”
Spencer’s point is simple. More advanced games are possible to create without dividing the player base. On the contrary, it’s devs who need to find out how to create an ecosystem for more players.
Xbox head honcho treats players as the center of dev strategy
Phil Spencer also further talked about how they make games around players. Instead of making the titles around the console, players are always the center.
“As a player you are the centre of our strategy,” Spencer added in the interview. “Our device is not the centre of our strategy, our game is not the centre of the strategy. We want to enable you to play the games you want to play, with the friends you want to play with, on any device.”
“On TV, the Xbox console is going to be the best way to play console games. Xbox Series X is the most powerful console out there, and it will have absolutely the best versions of our console games. But that’s not to exclude other people from being able to play.”
Phil Spencer and Xbox are showing their commitment to having their games playable everywhere. They want their first-party titles available across different generations of consoles. This mantra comes in contrary to Sony’s Jim Ryan, who wants to move on.
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