The last few weeks have not been easy for Microsoft. The British Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA for short, is blocking the planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, citing concerns about the cloud gaming market. The 70 billion deal has not yet died completely, but has become much less likely. Xbox console sales have also been falling significantly lately. Additionally, Arcane Studios’ Redfall, released on May 2nd, is proving to be quite a disappointment. The vampire shooter is not only plagued by the usual technical weaknesses, but also by deep flaws in the game design. The game didn’t do well in our test either. After Microsoft didn’t have a blockbuster to offer in the first-party area last year, the Redmond-based company is now under a lot of pressure. Video editor Carlo also sees Microsoft currently caught in a “storm of shittyness”, which means that expectations of Starfield are increasing. The role-playing game from Bethesda Game Studios is almost forced to become a masterpiece in order to turn the tide on Xbox.
However, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has a completely different opinion. While he’s recently expressed disappointment with the state in which Redfall has launched, overall he doesn’t seem to give as much importance to the role of blockbuster games in a platform’s success. in one Conversation with Kinda Funny Games Spencer explains that he doesn’t believe that an outstanding Starfield would change the balance of power in the console market too much. “There’s no world where Starfield is an 11/10 and people start selling their PS5s. That’s not going to happen,” Spencer explains his position.
According to the Xbox boss, trying to outdo Sony and Nintendo also makes little sense. During the Xbox One generation, most gamers developed a solid platform affiliation through the establishment of digital libraries, and Microsoft clearly lost that generation. It’s not just a matter of making up that gap with better games: “I see the comments out there – ‘If you just make great games, everything will turn out fine’. It’s just not true that if we go out and make great games, the proportion of consoles will suddenly change in dramatic ways. The worst generation that we lost was the Xbox One generation, where everyone built their digital games library. 90 percent of people go to a store every year to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems”.
So Microsoft is trying to go its own way. The console is still the core of the Xbox brand (buy now ), so we want to continue making sure the Xbox experience stays great. But beyond that, with Xbox, Phil Spencer is also pursuing the vision of a device-spanning market with an infrastructure that makes games possible on a wide variety of platforms such as PCs, smartphones and tablets. “We have this unique vision because we see what game developers want to do. Developers want to make games that players can play on any screen. People play with their friends no matter what screen they’re using,” explains Spencer . how do you see it? Would you switch if Starfield becomes a great game, or does Phil Spencer agree that players prefer to stay on their traditional platform where they have their library?
