Ahead of the Xbox business update set to take place later tonight, Microsoft reportedly told staff that “every screen is an Xbox” in an internal meeting, pushing its ambitious idea to become the leading cross-platform gaming company. This also comes in light of several reports and rumours about Xbox taking its exclusives like Starfield and Hi-Fi Rush to other platforms.
The internal meeting was held on 6 February at Microsoft, where Xbox boss Phil Spencer told employees that the company had no plans to exit the console business. However, Inverse journalist Shannon Liao, who previously wrote about Spencer’s comments at the meeting, recently released a new article discussing Microsoft president Sarah Bond’s comments. Specifically, Bond talked about how “every screen is an Xbox” saying that games can now be played on multiple devices as it’s no longer anchored to console hardware.
The company used Palworld as an example of a game running on multiple devices and not just consoles. However, when contrasted with Spencer’s comments, it seems like Microsoft still aims to produce consoles in the future, though it won’t be the company’s only goal going forward. This is in line with Xbox’s strategy to boost Game Pass as a household subscription service, so it makes sense to not limit its availability to just PC and Xbox hardware.
Xbox plans to go public with its future plans during tonight’s business update podcast where we’ll likely hear about its exclusives potentially going multi-platform. According to The Verge’s Tom Warren, it will start off with smaller titles like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment.
The reports have been met with a mixed reception online from Xbox players. Some celebrate the idea that Microsoft is expanding its IPs to other platforms, giving more gamers opportunities to play its first-party titles, while others think that this will significantly diminish the value of owning an Xbox console in the future.
Source: Inverse
