Xbox boss Phil Spencer has commented on the “health” of Xbox and how there will be “more change” while discussing the future of the gaming industry during Xbox’s first Gamescom livestream. This is the latest in the whirlwind of Gamescom news, after all the Xbox reveals from Opening Night Live.”The end result has to be better games that more people can play,” says SpencerXbox’s first Gamescom livestream is still underway with appearances from Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond. After discussing the announcement that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will launch for PS5 next year, Spencer began to talk more broadly about Xbox’s direction. “Last spring, we launched four games, two of them on the Switch, four of them on PlayStation, and we said we’re going to learn,” Spencer said. “What I see, when I look, is our franchises are getting stronger, our Xbox console players are as high this year as they’ve ever been. So I look at it, and I say OK, our player numbers are going up for the console platform, our franchises are as strong as they’ve ever been, and we run a business. Like, it’s definitely true inside of Microsoft; the bar is high for us, in terms of the delivery that we have to give back to the company, because we get a level of support from the company that is just amazing in what we’re able to go do. So I look at this, how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow both on console, on PC, and on Cloud, and I think it’s just going to be a strategy that works for us.”Interestingly, Spencer then adds, “there’s a lot of pressure on the industry, it’s been growing for a long time, and now people are looking for ways to grow, and I think us as fans, as players of games, we just have to anticipate there’s going to be more change, and how some of the traditional ways that games were built and distributed, that’s going to change. That’s going to change for all of us. But the end result has to be better games that more people can play. If we’re not focused on that, I think we’re focused on the wrong things. So for us as Xbox, health of Xbox, health of our platform, and our growing games, most important things.”It sounds, then, as though the team could be willing to continue to shake things up when it comes to the future of those upcoming Xbox exclusives. Hopefully we’ll hear more from Xbox about what exactly “change” might look like, as the communications on some past decisions haven’t always been entirely clear. There was a lot of discussion after Xbox announced that Game Pass will be making big changes with price hikes and a new Xbox Game Pass Standard option (which is now available via an Xbox Insider preview) and about last night’s announcement that Indy would be heading to PlayStation soon after launching for Xbox in December. This last decision appears to line up with Spencer’s comments about “better games that more people can play,” so hopefully the Xbox team will share more about its upcoming plans as Gamescom continues.
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