If there’s one thing Sony has an advantage over Microsoft in terms of games, it’s that Sony has arguably the best portfolio of franchises in gaming. While Microsoft has Gears of War, Forza, Halo and the like, it really can’t hold a candle against Sony’s first-party, single-player, narrative-driven franchises such as God of War, The Last of Us, Uncharted and the like.
It seems this notion isn’t lost on Xbox boss Phil Spencer. In an interview with GameReactor, Spencer admitted that he wants to see more single-player games from Microsoft’s first-party studios.
The same can be said for games with an inherent online focus, or even Live Service titles. Do you have a certain strategy as to how many projects at any given times are strictly single-player, or strictly multiplayer, or is it more fluid than that?
Phil Spencer: Yeah, it’s totally up to each studio, and I know some people that, when they’ve looked at the model around Game Pass, have assumed that Game Pass is actually a better model, if there’s more Games-as-a-Service games in the subscription. I actually argue the opposite and believe the opposite. The last thing I want in Game Pass is that there’s one game that everybody is playing forever, that’s not a gaming content subscription, that’s a one-game subscription, that’s WoW, right? So for us, having games in the subscription that have a beginning, middle, and end, and then they go on to play the next game, maybe those are single-player narrative-driven games, I just finished Tell Me Why, an amazing game from DontNod, those games can be really strong for us in the subscription. In many ways, they’re actually better than one or two games that are soaking up all the engagement in the subscription. I want a long tail of a lot of games that people are playing, and I think the diversity of online multiplayer versus single-player, we have to support the diversity there, and that’s my goal. If anything I’d like to see more single-player games from our first-party, just because that over time we’ve kind of grown organically to be more multiplayer-driven as an organisation.
You know what? I agree with Spencer. There’s no reason why Microsoft can’t cater to both multiplayer and single-player fanbases. Hopefully, Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda is a good start to seeing more first-party single-player games on Xbox.
In other Xbox news, make sure to check out Microsoft’s Xbox Series X walkthrough of the hardware, UI, dashboard and more!
#me2lol
This guy always over-promises and never delivers. It’s always wait until next year for him.
And he now has 23 first party studios and you think he will still under deliver asshat?
When will the first of those games arrive? In 2 years minimum and many of those will still come to Playstation…and ALL of them will come to PC.
Hey, in case you didn’t hear that yet…Todd Howard from Bethesda said he can’t imagine Bethesda games going exclusive in the future. Just saying.
Phil Spencer is slow to react to real time. Last year at this time he said he didn’t care about
60 FPS or single player games. This year he’s all for 60 FPS and single player games.
He’s the king of 180s and suddenly forgets about it shortly after. He was always an advocat againts exclusivity…until they suddenly bought a huge multiplatform publisher. Guy is a liar and a PR shill.
MS have more confirmed RPG’s in development than Sony have ever released. MS have proved that they’re on the right track, Sony are still using the same studios to create sub-average games with pretty visuals. Sony need to do better.
Hahaha Sony has had loads of GOTY contenders over the last gen. MS didn’t have ONE. There is a reason PS4 is outselling X1 by 7:1 every week this year.
@Hans Wurst Ok, It’s Reality check time. Sony Playstation has never, and i mean Never outsold Xbox 7 to 1. They outsold Xbox 2:1 so far and that was because Xbox One got off to a slow start because of the bundling of the Kinect camera which raised the price $ 100 over the PS4.
You’re in denial. I was talking about THIS YEAR and it is true, I don’t care if you believe it. Take a look yourself: http://www.vgchartz.com
Ha Ha Ha Ha, I’m in the state of denial. Boy you have no clue whatso ever.
There is a reason 3/4 of gamers are planning to buy a PS5 and no XBox next gen at launch. There is also a reason PS5 had 3 times the preorders as XSX/XSS in the UK and sold as many preorders in 12h as the PS4 did in 12 days. The reason is called trust! Something Microsoft didn’t deserve in the last decade.
I have some bad news for you. Xbox is set to outsell PS5 this Holiday season 2 -1. That’s
what market annalists are predicting. So sad for PlayStation !!
The last weeks it was 130,000 for PS4, 20,000 for X1. Now it’s up to 113,000 PS4 and 33,000 X1. X1 hasn’t started to sell better over the years, it has sold even worse than at launch.
Ok, for starters you clueless inbreed, Microsoft doesn’t release sales numbers, so any numbers you
see on third party sites are total speculation. And if you want to live in a world of speculations
than so be it. Loser !!
Those are retailer numbers kiddo. No way around it, they are very close to reality.
Glad to see Phil Spencer finally come around to 60 FPS games and Single player games. Just a year
ago he didn’t care that much about either one of them even though his player base was telling him
otherwise. I guess it just takes some people a little longer to come along.
It’s just Phil Spencer. He always forgets what he said immediately afterwards. Guy seems to have dementia.
You were saying the same thing 3 and a half years ago after the launch of Horizon Zero Dawn Phil. Your fans are getting tired. Even some of the most hardcore ones jumped the Xbox ship since then. You and the last few Xbots are in for a massive rude awakening when series s/x fails to sell even the same as Xbone.
Another little pony goofball………..hope you enjoyed playing your last Doom game loser!
Don’t care about console sales, I care about good content and good hardware. Sony aren’t really good at either. Elder Scrolls 6, Fable, Avowed, InExile’s next big RPG alone, and whatever else comes is far more exciting than whatever Sony has announced or has been confirmed.
None of those games will come out in the next 2 years.
Would dig that. Especially real RPGs. They have a shocking amount of good IP just collecting dust. It’s kinda sad.