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In the wake of widespread rumors about big changes coming to Microsoft's Xbox business, with an official announcement coming next week, it looks like there's already some internal damage control to be done.
journalist Shannon Liao reports There was a town hall at Xbox last Tuesday where Phil Spencer assured employees that they would not be exiting the console hardware market, and would continue to move forward with Xbox hardware. Xbox's strategy continues to use “multiple types of devices,” he said.
How do you get to the place where you have to make sure Xbox people are still making Xbox hardware? This is part of the idea that Microsoft will continue to focus less on console sales, even more than it already has, in favor of an “Xbox Everywhere” philosophy. This has included consoles, PCs and mobile devices that can play via the cloud, but rumors suggest it will now include PlayStation and Nintendo consoles as well to some extent.
The purpose of next week's announcement appears to be to introduce this philosophy, but it seems unlikely that Microsoft will actually do so everyone Her games. The ones that seem almost certain are Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, but recently a rumor about Starfield has been withdrawn by some sources, although others remain about games like Indiana Jones and Gears of Wars being considered for release on Multiple platforms.
The concern was that if Microsoft were to essentially go third-party, it would mean there was little reason to continue making Xbox hardware, which has already been outsold by the PS5 at a 2:1 ratio for the second generation in a row, and Phil Spencer has explicitly said that Xbox has lost Virtually a console war for Sony. Microsoft hasn't announced official Xbox sales in years, but it has also stopped reporting Game Pass subscriptions as well.
The most likely answer to what Spencer is addressing is that Microsoft will keep Xbox as a hardware option indefinitely for those who want the easiest access to all Microsoft games, throughout their first day of launch, on a dedicated device, to be played on a dedicated device. television. That's the functionality they have now, and even if more games come out elsewhere, that shouldn't change, so it makes sense that they wouldn't kill off the console division entirely. Not yet, though.
But the fact that this matter had to be addressed in an internal town hall at all indicates how much uncertainty there is, even within the company, let alone among fans trying to guess what's going on from outside the situation. Now that we're into the weekend, we still don't have a date or time for the “Xbox Business Update” Microsoft promised next week, but we should find out soon.
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