Xbox head Phil Spencer has admitted that the team could do better with its first party offerings. Exclusives are a big driving factor in how people to decide what console they’re going to play on. If you like big story-driven games, you’re probably going to go with PlayStation. If you like a variety of games that have different kinds of online offerings, you’ll probably go with Xbox. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, both platforms check all kinds of boxes, but Xbox has been struggling to compete with PlayStation in terms of big exclusives over the last few years. Halo Infinite was mostly a success, even if its post-launch support has been less than stellar, but there hasn’t been much else since then. In that time, Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us Part I, and God of War Ragnarok have/are about to release.
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Xbox boss Phil Spencer stated on the Same Brain podcast that he’s aware of the criticism and seems to even agree with it. Spencer noted that they were limited with COVID for a while, but things are going back to a sense of normalcy and they can’t really excuse the gaps in the schedule anymore. Starfield was intended to fill a key spot in Xbox’s 2022 slate, but it was delayed to 2023. Spencer does sound confident in the future of the company’s first party line-up, though.
“One thing we’ve definitely heard loud and clear is that it’s been too long since we’ve shipped what people would say is a big first party game,” Spencer said. “We could have our excuses on COVID and other things, but in the end I know people invest in our platform and they want to have great games. We’re excited about 2023. We’ve talked about games that are coming, and those games are tracking well. Getting our first real Xbox first party games out of Bethesda, having them ship Redfall and Starfield, will be a lot of fun.”
Of course, provided the Activision deal goes through, Xbox will have more developers and franchises to boast as part of its first-party offerings. Games like Call of Duty can be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one while still being on PlayStation, for instance. There’s a lot on the horizon, but it remains to be seen if it will be consistent both in terms of timing and quality.
What do you think of Xbox’s future? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
