In a chat that also featured him talking about handhelds for the many-th time this year, Xbox’s Phil Spencer has had some thoughts on where the games industry’s at in 2024. What’s he said, you ask? Well, “We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles”, a line that definitely doesn’t seem like it might potentially be a bit of a cheeky jab at a certain rather expensive console that came out pretty recently.
Speaking to Bloomberg, the Microsoft exec said that Xbox’s business “never been more healthy”. You know, after all of those layoffs and studio closures it’s done this year. Oh, and the growth in stuff like cloud gaming, PC gaming, and console usage that he also cited.
Looking more widely, Spencer said he feels “pretty good about where this industry is going”, explaining that his point of view is that: “To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles.”
Yep, expensive consoles aren’t going to grow the market, you know, like that PS5 Pro that wasn’t quite a full G in price, but was still identified as a bit expensive by lots of folks who weren’t in its main target audience of enthusiasts who were fine basically convincing themselves that the upgrades it promised were worth their cash.
Spencer also said that, while nothing is “imminent”, Xbox is still comsidering making more acquisitions following its huge Activision Blizzard deal last year, with another mobile company and/or something that adds “geographic diversity” – which is a lovely corporate phrase – seemigly being top of the list.
Outside of saying that, the exec touched on where things are at in terms of Xbox’s mindset when it comes to brining its games to other plaforms, declining to commit to what’ll happen with the next Halo game, but otherwise saying: “I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not’.”
I’ll be honest, I’ve not played it in a while, but I’m pretty sure you could find some crimson text in Pentiment that says something to that effect, probably in a cool medieval font.
Do you think Phil was taking a harmless little jab at the PS5 Pro here? Let us know below!
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