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Stories filed under: "phil spencer"

Xbox’s ‘Business Update Event’ Attempts To Address Rumors…Vaguely

from the valiant-attempt dept

As anyone paying attention to the video game industry will already know, the last couple of weeks have seen a great deal of rumor and speculation as to the state of Xbox-istan. What started as unsubstantiated rumors suggesting that Xbox was about to make some of its Microsoft-exclusive titles crossplatform to other consoles morphed into more outlandish theories that Microsoft was going to stop making Xbox consoles altogether. Xbox chief Phil Spencer addressed the latter of those rumors in an internal memo, alongside a promise to host a “Business Update Event.”

And so that event happened. Was there information in it? Yes! Did it clear everything up? Kind of! Was it yet another example of vague or confusing communication coming out of Xbox’s leadership? How could it possibly be otherwise?

We’ll start with the rumored crossplatform titles. Much of the rumor mill correctly suggested that there would be 4 games that would be going crossplatform soon. And that turns out to have been true! They’re just not the ones people wanted. And you don’t get to know officially which games we’re talking about, either.

After weeks of rumors around its strategy regarding Xbox console exclusives, Microsoft announced today that it is “going to take four games to the other consoles.” The company stopped short of announcing what those now non-exclusive games would be, but it did point out that neither Starfield nor Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be appearing on other consoles.

All four of the soon-to-be multi-platform titles are “over a year old,” Xbox chief Phil Spencer said in an “Updates on the Xbox Business” podcast video. The list includes a couple of “community-driven” games that are “first iterations of a franchise” that could show growth on non-Xbox consoles, as well as two others that Spencer said were “smaller games that were never really meant to be built as kind of platform exclusives… I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox.”

Now, on the one hand, more information getting to the public is generally good. And I’m sure there is some sort of business reason why the announcement of what these four games are can’t be officially made, yet. But I also can’t for the life of me understand why this announcement would be made without being able to name the games. This still would typically allow for a lot of rumors to float around, so what was the point?

Fortunately, in this case, journalists did the work and appear to have answered that question for us, such that the speculation will probably be held at bay.

The Verge cites “sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans” in reporting that Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded are the four multi-platform titles Microsoft is referencing today.

“The teams that are building those [multi-platform] games have announced plans that are not too far away,” Spencer said, “but I think when they come out, it’ll make sense.”

But then there was this.

Spencer stressed during the podcast that this limited multi-platform move does not represent “a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy.” He added that “we’re making these decisions for some specific reasons,” citing “the long-term health of Xbox and a desire to “use what some of the other platforms have right now to help grow our franchises.”

To which my immediate reply is: what the hell is your exclusive strategy? Seriously, the messaging on this very important piece of the equation has been all over the damned place. And because of that, someone in Spencer’s position does not get to simply trot this line out there as if everyone in the gaming public is already on the same page as he is. In 2020, Spencer made comments suggesting that crossplatforming titles was not needed for Xbox to succeed with specific game franchises. Then another Xbox executive suggested that games would have timed Microsoft exclusives later that same year. Then, in 2021, Spencer announced that the next Elder Scrolls game would be a Microsoft exclusive. Fast forward roughly one year later and you have Spencer himself stating that exclusive titles were not the future for Xbox, just as Starfield was announced as a, you guessed it, Microsoft exclusive.

It’s in that bowl of tangled informational linguine that Spencer has the gall to state publicly that these latest plans don’t change Xbox’s “fundamental exclusive strategy.” And if you don’t understand why that is so infuriating, you’re lost.

And so this is just more Microsoft. Even attempts at being more open and communicative result in confusion and frustration.

Filed Under: cross platform, phil spencer, video games, xbox
Companies: microsoft

The Communication Vacuum Is Causing More Chaos As GameStop Tweets And Deletes Promo

from the literally-just-say-something! dept

The chaos for Xbox keeps on rolling, it seems. We were just talking about how years of muddled communication coming from Microsoft’s Xbox team over exclusives and game ports to other consoles is resulting in a ton of confusion and speculation among the gaming public. The responsibility for all of this lies squarely at the feet of Xbox chief Phil Spencer and his team, which have oscillated between talking out of both sides of their mouths on these exclusives, and just sitting back and not saying a single thing when the confusion shows its head. And what that also allows for is speculation and conspiracy theories when, seemingly, a 3rd party vendor simply makes an oopsie.

GameStop tweeted out a promotion the other day for a in-store demo day where the public could walk into a store and try out some games using “Game Pass,” Xbox’s game-streaming and subscription service. It’s currently called “Xbox Game Pass,” but GameStop’s tweet referred to it as “Microsoft Game Pass.” The result was immediate.

On February 7, the official GameStop Twitter/X/whatever account posted a promo image for an Xbox demo day. Seems fine enough. But when referring to Game Pass, the company used the term “Microsoft Game Pass.” This is odd. Normally, I don’t think anyone would really care. However, we ain’t in normal times right now.

A retweet from Wario64 pointing out the phrase “Microsoft Game Pass” went viral online and theories were quickly spun up, with many pointing to this as more evidence that Microsoft was planning to kill the Xbox brand or use it for hardware only. Others suggested that it was Microsoft rebranding the subscription service— which grants you access to hundreds of games for a monthly fee—so it could be used on Switch or PlayStation.

This was almost certainly a simple mistake. Microsoft has told reporters writing stories about this whole thing that it had nothing to do with the verbiage GameStop tweeted out. But this wild speculation is again the result of one thing: the vacuum the Xbox team has left in place to be filled by conspiracy theories and rumor.

And it only got worse when GameStop subsequently deleted the tweet entirely.

This, as you might expect, convinced some that it was a mistake. It also convinced some “passionate” gamers that it was actually evidence that GameStop let the cat out of the bag too early and the death of Xbox as a brand really is coming soon. The end is nigh and all that.

Anyway, the reality is that GameStop likey made a mistake. Or, someone realized that using the term “Microsoft Game Pass” right now would set off a firestorm of speculation that would lead to more coverage and online discussion of an event that, let’s be real here, would never have been covered by most places or talked about online by gamers if this whole thing hadn’t spiraled out of control.

Correct. The point isn’t that GameStop’s mistake is in and of itself a big deal. It isn’t. The point instead is that the Xbox team has completely failed to get out in front of all of this speculation, allowing everyone’s pet theories to take the place of what should have been clear and proactive communication coming out from Microsoft as to just what in the hell it has planned for the Xbox brand.

Seriously, Spencer and team: just freaking say something, for the love of god.

Filed Under: communications, game pass, phil spencer, video ames, xbox
Companies: gamestop, microsoft

Phil Spencer Internal Comms Leak, In Which He Only Addresses To Most Fringey Conspiracy Theory

from the facepalm dept

And here we go again. I have spent some time pointing out that the Xbox team has demonstrated an unfortunate inability to properly communicate both internally and externally about its various plans. Whether it comes to how it’s going to handle exclusives, game ports, or just the overall direction of the division’s plans, what comes out of the team at Microsoft is often a confusing, vague, jumbled mess that serves only to free everyone to speculate away as to what is actually going to happen. This came to a head recently, with rampant speculation primarily that Microsoft was going to port a number of high profile first-party games to other consoles, and a secondary and more fringe theory that Microsoft was going to get out of the console making business entirely.

Well, Xbox chief Phil Spencer has apparently held an internal open meeting with his team to answer, well, I guess only the fringiest of the speculation. We’ll start with what was actually addressed.

A recent story from reporter Shannon Liao alleges Spencer held an internal town hall meeting with Xbox employees on February 6, following the weekend reports of Xbox porting games to PS5. In that meeting, he reportedly said the company has no plans to stop making consoles and that Xboxes would continue to be a part of the company’s strategy alongside other devices.

This part is easy. I can’t believe any serious person actually ever thought that Microsoft was going to pivot away from its console business entirely. It is true that Sony is kicking Microsoft’s butt overall in the console market. Reports have Sony moving roughly three times the units compared with the Xbox. But selling 7.6 million Xbox units is nothing to sneeze at and it would be baffling to see the company simply walk out of the market entirely.

Which is what makes it so frustrating that Spencer only addressed that rumor and completely ignored the question about game ports.

Interestingly, Liao also reported on X/Twitter that Spencer did not confirm nor deny rumors that Starfield would go to other consoles, even though this meeting took place after those reports cropped up.

Later this week, we will likely find out if any of these rumors and reports of Xbox exclusives coming to other platforms are true. On February 5, the day before the reported town hall meeting, Spencer announced that a “business update event” about the future of Xbox was coming soon and that he would be sharing more details then. Until that time, the Xbox faithful will just have to hold on a little bit longer.

They’re not going to “hold on” at all, as we’ve already seen. They’re going to speculate, theorize, and otherwise fill the information void that Xbox has left in its wake. Sure, we may have answers this week, still. Maybe. Hell, with the Xbox team, you never know.

But leaving the public to generate its own theories will also virtually guarantee that whatever the news Spencer will finally release in his event will piss off or disappoint some percentage of the public that had settled on some theory that won’t come to be.

In other words, this is just not how you handle communicating to either your internal team, nor your customers.

Filed Under: communications, phil spencer, rumors, starfield, xbox
Companies: microsoft

More Confusion Over Xbox Exclusives As Reports Of Game Ports Start Leaking

from the phil-us-in dept

I don’t know what it is or why it is, but the Xbox team just can’t seem to communicate clearly when it comes to how it’s going to handle exclusivity in games for its console. After it gobbled up several game studios and publishers, most recently Activision Blizzard, the messaging from the Xbox team about what games would be exclusives has been muddy at best. It was less than two years ago that we watched them do a full flip-flop on exclusives, going from saying that they’re not doing them, to then doing them, only to then say that long-term the company would ween itself off of exclusives because they don’t comport with the company’s “philosophy.”

Xbox chief Phil Spencer specifically mentioned that the then-upcoming game Starfield would be a Microsoft exclusive game, which it has been since its release. Except that game, along with some future titles, are now the subject of supposed leaked information that they’d be coming to the PlayStation console.

After a number of high-profile leaks suggesting Xbox is looking into porting a number of first-party titles to other platforms, Phil Spencer has taken to Twitter to clear the air. The head of Xbox tells fans that they should look forward to a “business update event” next week, though he did not provide details on exact timing or the nature of the updates. Considering the widespread coverage the rumors of Xbox games going to other platforms have gotten, it’s likely that this event will officially announce the news.

The rumors in question include reports from The Verge that MachineGames is “considering” a release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PlayStation 5 sometime after the game launches on PC and Xbox. Other reports from XboxEra alleged similar plans for a PlayStation 5 port of Starfield that will release sometime after the Shattered Space DLC.

And so this has sent Spencer scrambling to give some update where he will, in theory, possibly provide some actual answers into whether these games would get PlayStation ports or not. The reality might be more of the same, which is to say vague words about what might happen at some point, which Microsoft will then go back on.

But what can’t be argued is that the company has in any way communicated its plans clearly. And Spencer feigning as though he’s heard that complaint just doesn’t cut it.

The full tweet from Spencer is as follows: “We’re listening and we hear you. We’ve been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned.”

We’ll see what comes of this “business update”, I suppose. The problem here is that Spencer has already tanked his own credibility to such a degree that I don’t know if any serious person will take him at his word.

Filed Under: phil spencer, playstation, ports, starfield, video games, xbox
Companies: microsoft

Leaker Of Those FTC Microsoft Documents Revealed: It Was Microsoft Doing An Oopsie

from the whoops dept

As many of you are probably already aware, a massive leak of internal documents at Microsoft occurred this week, all of which came out of the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. We discussed a small portion of that leak a few days ago when we talked about Microsoft’s decision to take the next Elder Scrolls game exclusive to Microsoft platforms. But there was a great deal more that was leaked in the trove of documents that were included, both from internal company documents and emails. The reveals from those documents include:

Spencer himself addressed the leaks, both externally and internally to staff, which of course also leaked out.

Spencer hints that Microsoft’s plans may have changed, particularly as some documents were from last year, but others were from years prior. “I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved,” says Spencer in his internal memo.

In a similar briefer statement shared on X (formerly Twitter), Spencer says: “We’ve seen the conversation around old emails and documents. It is hard to see our team’s work shared in this way because so much has changed and there’s so much to be excited about right now, and in the future. We will share the real plans when we are ready.”

Left out of all that was a very clear statement as to who the known “leaker” was: Microsoft. And that’s really point one I want to address in Spencer’s statement. The passive language being used here doesn’t make it clear that Microsoft is the one that FUBAR’d this. But that is indeed what happened. It wasn’t someone at the FTC. It wasn’t someone in the court. It was Microsoft doing an oopsie.

“The FTC was not responsible for uploading Microsoft’s plans for its games and consoles to the court website,” tweeted Douglas Farrar, director of its Office of Public Affairs. He later shared a new court order released by the judge in the case, Jacqueline Scott Corley. It called for both the FTC and Microsoft to meet again to go over the issues with exhibits, and placed the blame squarely on the latter for the latest leak.

“The Court ordered the parties to meet and confer and provide the Court with a secure cloud link to the admitted exhibits with the redactions set forth in the Court’s orders,” she wrote. “Microsoft provided the link on September 14 and the Court uploaded the exhibits to [the] internet page established for this case.”

There you have it. But there’s another thing I’d like to point out when it comes to Spencer’s statements, specifically where he laments how the public is going through these documents and reaching what he is calling the wrong conclusions, either because they’re misinterpreting the content of the leaked documents, or because those documents are outdated.

Well, the problem with that lament is that Phil Spencer has routinely said one thing publicly and then gone ahead and done another. He told us Xbox exclusives weren’t the future, but that’s all there seems to be these days at Microsoft. Microsoft acquisitions weren’t supposed to result in fewer people being able to play games from those series in fewer places, except that’s exactly what happened.

And yet here we are, with Spencer himself complaining that the public is reaching the wrong conclusions having read internal documents and emails, some of which were from Spencer himself. But where else is the public supposed to go to get real insight and information as to what Microsoft is going to do?

Certainly not Spencer himself, which is my point. If he wanted to be able to tell the public, “Hold up, that information is old and wrong, wait until I tell you what the plans are.”, well, then he shouldn’t have been so misleading all this time.

Filed Under: ftc, leak, phil spencer, xbox
Companies: activision blizzard, microsoft

Xbox Chief: Exclusives Aren’t the Future, Pay No Attention To All These Exclusives

from the say-what-now? dept

Xbox’s management team’s inability to put out a clear public message regarding exclusive titles is becoming a real thing. When the season of acquisitions kicked off last year and Microsoft bought up Zenimax/Bethesda studios, the muddled messaging began. First were conflicting statements over the exclusivity of those studios’ titles, then came Microsoft saying those titles would be “first/better” on Xbox, before finally landing on at least one title from Bethesda going as an Xbox exclusive. The confused messaging continued after Microsoft announced it was looking to acquire Activision Blizzard, with some vague messaging about how that studio’s games would be handled.

And so here we are, with the Xbox folks saying lots of words about not really being into exclusives while churning out exclusives. And amidst all of that, just to keep things as confusing as possible, is Xbox chief Phil Spencer saying again that exclusives aren’t really part of Microsoft’s vision for the console.

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, recently described the progress of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard as heading in a “positive direction,” as the company awaits regulatory approval of the deal that would see it owning wildly popular franchises such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. He also believes that we’re likely to see exclusives play “less and less” of a role in the console space moving forward. These comments come after Xbox recently acquired Bethesda Softworks—making upcoming, highly anticipated games like Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI console-exclusive to Xbox—and seeks to finalize the aforementioned Activision deal.

Now, we could take Spencer at his word and assume that Microsoft has some plan to ween itself off exclusivity. But I’m not sure how that makes any sense. For one thing, why the need for the weening at all? If Xbox doesn’t believe in exclusivity as a business philosophy, then don’t plan to make these new titles, which won’t come out any time in the very near future, exclusive. What’s the problem?

Add to that how the public has been conditioned to not take Spencer at his word, and it leaves me wondering why anyone wouldn’t assume that Spencer’s statement will soon transform into something that leaves more room for exclusive titles. That is what has happened every step of the way thus far.

Spencer touched on a variety of topics, including the company’s recent moves to acquire Activision Blizzard, the scrutiny of Activision’s documented culture of sexual harassment, the unionization efforts seen at Activision, and how he believes that the very concept of exclusives is due to go the way of the dinosaur.

But again, all the current actions by Microsoft amount to them roaring at the sky and waving tiny arms like a T-Rex. So why can’t Spencer just put out a transparent message, whatever the truthful message might be?

Filed Under: exclusives, phil spencer, video games, xbox
Companies: microsoft