“Our community is at the heart of what we do at Xbox,” said Phil Spencer, on Xbox’s official blog regarding his brand-new position as the figurehead of Xbox. Another new day has dawned at corporate Microsoft as Satya Nadella noted earlier this week that the company would be applying their full attention to innovation and evolution of the Xbox. Since the release of the Xbox One, and the various financial successes found in supporting their next-gen consoles; the company has taken the steps necessary to enhance the Xbox One’s perpetual growth as an influential gaming platform. Including placing another prominent man well-known for his presence in the gaming community as the overseer for the product’s numerous wares.
Phil Spencer goes on to describe the company’s focal point as being, “leading with Xbox One.” In further explanation as to what this means for Microsoft as a whole, the newfound leader of Xbox was able to comment in an interview with Kotaku. “[We’re] also thinking about Windows and our other platforms and making sure that gaming shows up as a real catalyst for those platforms’ growth as well,” said Spencer. “But Xbox One is our most important gaming asset to date. [We want to] make sure we’re completely focused on that gaming customer, that core gaming fan. Making sure of that, that’s what I’m going to bring to this position is a focus on gaming for Xbox One. The entertainment features that we have on Xbox One are important, but those can’t come at a cost for what we do for the core gamer.”
It has been ten months since the Xbox One’s reveal; and that was geared far more towards the non-gaming aspect of the Xbox’s next-gen installment rather then giving center-stage to the console’s capabilities to entice– well, you know– actual gaming. Fortunately, it seems like Spencer has begun to tackle this issue head-on, rather then blatantly choosing to ignore it. If you want to insinuate an essential focus on gaming, you simply have to get a self-proclaimed “gaming guy” in the hot-seat. And that is exactly what Xbox’s sudden swap in corporate intends to do.
The ascension of Phil Spencer as the head of Xbox has spoken multitudes on Microsoft’s account. Gamers of all kinds; of multiple genres, and distant lands– they’re asking for you back. With full attention now on gaming, the big gaming conference in June amasses an even larger stake for Microsoft. Spencer was not liable to comment on Xbox One’s E3 line-up, but he did reveal that: “it’s incredibly strong both with sequels and new IP, unannounced things.”
During the next few months, we’ll see for ourselves just how the switch of leadership will look to transform the future of Xbox.