Xbox’s Phil Spencer is regularly vocal on Twitter, answering questions and discussing Xbox and its competitors with followers and fans. This interactivity not only allows fans to feel like they’re cared for by the platform that they themselves may love, but it also gives us a great amount of insight into how Xbox and Microsoft approach the games industry and their products within the market.
Yesterday, Spencer had a healthy and enlightening conversation with his followers on Twitter, talking about various aspects of Microsoft and Xbox’s approach to the gaming hardware market, among other things. When questioned about Xbox “doing better” as, while Xbox 360 fans have moved to PlayStation 3, few PlayStation fans have moved the other direction, Spencer responded with the tweet below.
Gaming not race btw 2 consoles. Good games aren't weapons vs other plats, We work 2 make Xbox/Win10 great places 2 play
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 21, 2017
Spencer’s response, while obviously truncated to fit within Twitter’s character limitation, speaks to Xbox and Windows 10 becoming not just successful, but a great place to want to play games. He continues later, when asked why Microsoft never attempted to develop a mobile gaming solution to compete with the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable families of devices:
Our view was that phones would take almost all of the mobile gaming market mostly.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 21, 2017
Spencer makes a good point, even considering that Microsoft’s own mobile offering, Windows Phone 8.1 now Windows 10 Mobile, continues to decline in popularity. The Universal Windows Platform is helping to bring some of the gaming experiences from Windows 10 and Xbox to Lumia and other third-party Windows 10 Mobile devices, as well as to the Xbox One and upcoming Project Scorpio hardware.
I do think UWP will bring apps and games to XB1, see things like Fallout Shelter, Tablo app etc. Need to work towards AAA games
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 21, 2017
Spencer’s mention of Fallout Shelter is a prime example of UWP work, as Bethesda intended to hit Windows 10 with Fallout shelter via UWP, but since the company used the universal platform, the game was also unintentionally compatible with Xbox One. On the topic of UWP, Spencer also briefly mentioned the development of the platform helping to both create new games and project efforts with Ark: Survival Evolved (which is still having its UWP-ness brought in with a future update) as well as Astroneer, Fallout Shelter, and some of Microsoft’s own games like Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4, and Forza Horizon 3. Spencer also remarks that the early work with these games are helping to make bring PC games to Xbox One more feasible. He does note that there is still ‘more to do’ with UWP to make it as best a place to develop and play games as possible.
Spencer tweets a lot about a lot of things, but we’ll be sure to net the best and catch you up when he next gives us some big answers. Until then, be sure to stay tuned to Rectify Gaming for the latest.
Via: GameSpot
