“I want to win this generation.” It was 2014 and Phil Spencer, then head of Xbox division, was confidently moving forward with his Xbox One, after the Xbox 360 finished strongly against the PS3. Neuf ans plus tard, the same man n’a plus la même assurance et reconnaît une défaite sans débat, the PlayStation 4 still sells two more fois mieux than the Xbox One (plus 118 million for the first time and more than 60 million for the second).
In an interview with the YouTube show Kinda Funny Games, Phil Spencer admitted that his company had lost “the worst generation to lose to the Xbox One generation.” “It’s the generation where everyone has built their digital library of games,” he explains, ranking Xbox third in the market. “90% of gamers who go to the store to buy a console are already members of one of the three ecosystems (Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo, editor’s note). Your digital library is there.”
Not a world where Starfield would drop the PS5
If the Xbox console had revolutionized the game by being the first in 2001 to have an Internet connection, play online and then access Xbox Live to download content, Microsoft’s gaming branch was then joined by its competitor Sony and even surpassed it in the purchase of dematerialized games. And it’s this advantage that Xbox couldn’t capitalize on from then on, especially with Xbox One, which met its always-on obligation like a ball and chain from day one.
Phil Spencer points out that gamers now transfer their digital library from one console to another and are no longer forced to buy new games for their new console, as was the case particularly with the previous generation. Microsoft ended up trying a gamble by implementing the backwards compatibility feature for Xbox 360 games on Xbox One (all you had to do was put the disc in for the title to be recognized and playable, or even associate your Xbox account Live for the previous version). compatibility of Xbox 360 libraries on Xbox One is done).
Before launching its new PlayStation Plus service and accepting that PS4 games run on PS5, Sony rejected any backwards compatibility. Only the latest PS Now service allowed you to play old PS2 or PS3 games, sometimes via streaming. A strategy that has notably pushed players to switch to dematerialized.
To counter this, Xbox has launched its Xbox Game Pass to offer a library of “out of the box” games that follow both from one console, digital or not, to another, as well as in the cloud on smartphones and everywhere in between. possible means where the service is available.
“We have a unique vision in the market and we are no longer focused exclusively on consoles, but we are building an ecosystem that supports games on all devices”, underlines Phil Spencer. “Today there is no world in which Starfield inherits an 11/10 and in which gamers start selling their PS5. It’s not going to happen”, admits the head of the games, adding that “creating great games” would not be enough to reverse the situation. with the flick of a magic wand. A wave of the magic wand that will not have the traits of red autumnthe first true exclusivity born from the takeover of the ZeniMax-Bethesda group and which took the form of a failure that was badly experienced even by the interested party.
Waiting for Europe’s response
But Phil Spencer does not lose control, caught in a long-distance confrontation with Sony who wants to prevent him from buying Activision Blizzard: “When you are in the third position in the console market, only the first two players are as strong, and in some cases very quietly focused on getting deals and whatnot, we have to admit that times are tough for us. And that’s our fault, not someone else’s. ‘someone else.’
It is not enough to kill the head of Microsoft video games who promises a colorful conference on June 11, with many announcements and the arrival of exclusives beyond those expected star field. “There is no victory for Xbox following in the wake of another. We have to move forward and do it our way, like with Game Pass, cloud gaming or our own way of making games, ”he insists, but wanting to be trusted for the future.
But for the latter to be radiant and give Phil Spencer a smile, it will undoubtedly take games, and good ones. And possibly a ray of sunshine from the European Union that must rule on the Activision Blizzard case to, perhaps, give its approval. And I would put a little balm on the green heart that begins to wither a little this spring. Unless all this is nothing more than a strategy to make Europe and the United States feel sorry for the eternal status of market challenger that Xbox wants to guarantee…
Source: BFM TV
