Microsoft’s Spencer Says He’s Pumped About The Future Of Xbox Consoles
Contrary to some of the speculation that is out there, the Xbox One X is not the the end of the road for Xbox. Phil Spencer, executive vice president of gaming and head of the Xbox brand at Microsoft, confirmed as much during E3 earlier this year, and now he's followed that up by saying he is "very excited" about the future of Xbox.
This has not always been a given. Game consoles have become more PC-like with the latest generation of game systems, and have also gone the way of incremental upgrades, like the Xbox One S followed by the Xbox One X. On top of it all, there has been a resurgence in PC gaming of sorts, with esports taking off the way that it has.
For Microsoft in particular, the Xbox One has not kept pace with rival Sony's PlayStation 4 in terms of unit sales. Nevertheless, the future of Xbox is not in question, based on Spencer's comments to LevelUp.
"The reason I love the consoles that we build is because I think we can build very special consoles," Spencer said. "I see it today with Xbox One X and how games run on the Xbox One X, I think it's a fantastic place to play. When I look at our future plans, I am very excited about what we are going to do in the console space."
Spencer basically doubled down on his comments from E3 when he sought to put people's minds at ease in regards to Microsoft's console future. At the time, he talked about having ideas for streaming, but indicated nothing was immediately planned. However, in his more recent comments, Spencer followed that up by talking about games working across multiple devices, allowing a gamer to pick up where they left off.
"I try to think about a player's choice," Spencer said. Where do they want to play their games? They should be able to play their games where they want to go play. They should stay connected to their friends, wherever they're playing from. Their library of games, as much as possible, should be with them wherever they go."
"The thing I've always thought was a miss was we have so much content that's locked to an individual device," Spencer added. "If I play a console on a television, I play these games. If I play on PC I play those games. I play on a phone I play those games. Some of that's great; because some of those games are purpose-built for that scenario. There are great stories and characters that should.. I think gaming brings people together. And I think the content that I love and the stories; I'd love to see it come to every device."
Streaming is still "years and years" away though, from Spencer's vantage point, and that's assuming it takes off in the first place. Either way, the console wars will continue to rage on for a long time to come, it seems.
