Phil Spencer Defends Xbox’s Cross-Generation Strategy

Whenever a new console generation arrives, there are typically first-party games that are exclusive to the new platform. Microsoft is doing things differently this time around, opting to instead offer their first-party titles on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series X for the first two years. This raised some eyebrows amongst fans, so Xbox boss Phil Spencer has come out to defend the company’s approach to their first-party games being cross-generation titles.

In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, Spencer address concerns that Xbox games will be held back due to them having to run on older hardware. “Frankly, held back is a meme that gets created by people who are too caught up in device competition,” Spencer says on the topic. He goes on to compare their approach to how PC gaming works.

“I just look at Windows. 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.”

Although he believes that the strategy Xbox is taking is nothing to worry about, Spencer has been playing with the Xbox Series X at home, and he does note that it is different from the play experience on an Xbox One X.

The team at Playstation is taking the more traditional route when it comes to the Playstation 5. Playstation boss Jim Ryan has stated before that they “believe in generations” and that the developers should “make games that can make the most of those features.” While Phil Spencer applauds all the innovations that next-gen is bringing to consoles such as the introduction of the SSD, ray-tracing, and increased graphical fidelity, he believes these things shouldn’t “exclude people from being able to play.”

It’ll be some time before we see if Xbox’s strategy pays off for them. We’ll be able to see what the power of the Xbox Series X will be able to do for their first-party titles much sooner during their upcoming games showcase on July 23.