For the gaming industry, so-called “exclusive games” have always been a double-edged sword. Although this approach can indeed boost the sales performance of its consoles, it also limits the number of player groups that these games can reach. Since the era when the console wars focused on Nintendo and SEGA, game development technology has undergone many changes, and more and more modern young gamers do not like to be limited to the same form of entertainment.
In a recent interview with the Polygon website, Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed that their changes to the “console exclusive” strategy are actually still in line with the company’s “original brand intentions”, and this change has also led them to decide to let some of their Exclusive games have begun to appear on the two major competitor platforms, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
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“This concept of ‘only Xbox can be your own TV entertainment device’ is not consistent with the results of our survey on Generation Z. Because they have no such idea at all. Some of them use iPhones, and some of them use iPhones. They use Android, but the games they play and all the app content are the same,” said Phil Spencer
“TikTok can be downloaded on both platforms, at least right now. It’s all available on any platform. So for Xbox, as we try to attract and maintain awareness among young people, our core original intention It’s just, ‘Xbox is where I find the best games.’”
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It remains to be seen whether such a strategy can successfully attract young people, or whether it will lead them to decide to buy other game consoles that can also play Xbox. But what is certain is that Nintendo, which has extremely high popularity and console sales around the world, has no intention or necessity to give up its exclusive game strategy. It still steadily launches a variety of well-received games from its IP on their consoles. As for PlayStation, many changes have gradually occurred in recent years, and exclusive IPs such as “Horizon”, “God of War”, “Uncharted”, “The Last of Us”, “Days Gone” and “Ghost of Tsushima” have gradually been launched. PC version, but it seems that there is still no way to get these games on the Xbox platform.
In this interview, Spencer also mentioned the importance of the growth of the game community, and he also claimed that he has not seen such a situation among his own player community. However, this is indeed a rather strange statement, considering that Spencer has been actively expanding the Xbox brand for many years, while promoting programs such as Xbox Game Pass. For now, Xbox fans have mixed views on this new strategy, and there were even rumors that Microsoft planned to abandon the Xbox console, but such claims have been refuted. What long-term changes this new strategy will bring is, of course, open to debate.
