If you’ve seen a lot of Phil Spencer news lately, it’s because he’s doinga media circuit—taking interviews and giving statements to drum up support for Microsoft Gaming.
In this latest round, he spoke about video game expansions - policies, general dos-and-don’ts, and his own thoughts. To that end, Spencer gave us some insight into what he generally likes to see.
“I want it to have a unique point of view. I don’t want it to be, like, the third level that you cut before you launched.”
This is the sort of thing that’s hard to pin down as a policy, and as such, Microsoft specified that there’s “no general mandate” that it is enforcing on game developers.
“It’s really left to the creators what plan they have for their stories. I think it’s a great way for us to re-engage players who may be lapsed.”
Getting into the specifics, Spencer cited the latestStarfieldexpansion and a discussion he had with Todd Howard about what should and shouldn’t be behind a paywall.
One piece of feedback Spencer heard about the expansion was a lack of new features. He and Howard found a potential solution, but didn’t seem to like it much.
Starfield: Shattered Space Review
Shattering expectations, but not in a good way.
That game’s buggies came out before the Shattered Space expansion dropped, and as such were free to all. Holding back the buggies would have, in his mind, helped solve that problem - but it would’ve come at the cost of Spencer’s apparent position on what an expansion should be.
Phil Spencer’s Interlinked Interviews
Earlier today, we reported on Xbox’s recent ad campaign, focusing more on cloud gaming as their next Big Thing. With their cloud gaming service being exclusive to those who pay for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the message ultimately pushes towards a subscription-based revenue model.
Xbox Pushes Cloud Gaming Over Consoles In New Ad Campaign
The latest Xbox ads promote cloud gaming over Xbox Series X/S consoles.
Additionally,PC Gamersuggests that this interview’s focus on expansions is a direct consequence of Xbox Game Pass. After all, when players can circumvent a game’s upfront cost, expansions seem much more financially lucrative.
It comes as little surprise, then, that Phil Spencer’s interview comments fit into a much larger picture. He’s the head of Microsoft Gaming - if the business has a trajectory, then so does he.
Recent business moves on Xbox’s part have caught some criticism, particularly the closing ofvarious smaller studiosunder Microsoft’s wing—includingTango Gameworks, developers of the out-of-nowhere hitHi-Fi Rush. But like it or not, they’re cooking something over at Microsoft. All that’s left is to see how well it all goes for them.
