The Xbox community was enraged earlier this year when Microsoft announced Xbox exclusives for rival platforms. In a recent interview, Phil Spencer said he was not ruling out sending more Xbox first-party titles to rival platforms—the new reality Xbox fans must get used to.
After losing the infamous ‘console war’, Microsoft has embarked on a strategic business shift that has seen the Xbox brand tilt more towards being a publishing brand than just a console. In fact, gamers can now play Xbox games with an Amazon Fire TV stick and some Smart TVs rather than just on consoles.
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“I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not,’” Spencer reportedly said in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
Since sending Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves to PS5 and Nintendo Switch, Spencer has maintained that more first-party titles may find homes in other consoles because according to him, they want to meet players where they are.
“I don’t think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform…,” Spencer told The Verge in February. “To ensure long-term success for both Xbox and the industry as a whole, we must continue to evolve.”
Although Microsoft has yet to reveal its profits from the games it sent to rival platforms, the fact that they are considering sending more games to rival platforms means it must have been a good deal. Sea of Thieves was the most downloaded game on PS5 in May. The upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has already been announced to join PS5 in 2025.
Xbox is open to more acquisitions
One successful acquisition will always inspire a company to dream for more. After scaling through multiple hurdles to close the $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Xbox boss mentioned in the Bloomberg interview that they are still open to more acquisitions.
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According to the publication, Spencer hinted that they would be aiming at diversifying their portfolio geography-wise by acquiring studios in Asia (particularly China). He also hinted that he had an interest in acquiring another mobile company to expand their portfolio in that regard. According to Bloomberg, Age of Empires Mobile released last month was a collaboration with Tencent.
“It’s been a good area for us to learn from creative teams that have real unique capability,” Spencer explained. “The real opportunity is to partner with creative teams in China for global.”
“We definitely want to be in the market, and when we can find teams and technology and capability that add to what we’re trying to do in gaming at Microsoft, absolutely we will keep our heads up.”
While these are the intentions of the Microsoft gaming division, no deals are on the horizon. He added that any deal that they’ll sign will unlikely be of the same scale as the Activision Blizzard deal since the company is still trying to absorb the employees from that deal.
