In a recent blog post on the official Xbox website, the father of all things Xbox, Phil Spencer addressed fans’ concerns about the next generation and offered his take on the future of gaming. One of the major takeaways from the post and one that has stood out to the Twittersphere most vehemently is that there won’t be any first-party exclusives for the Xbox Series X during the first few years of its lifespan.
This is actually a great thing for consumers, particularly for Xbox fans who might not have the funds to upgrade straight away. This simply means that Xbox Game Studios titles will all play on both systems for at least the first few years. This doesn’t mean that the Xbox Series X won’t have any exclusive games with third party titles such The Medium and Scorn already confirmed to be exclusive to the console.
“You won’t be forced into the next generation. We want every Xbox player to play all the new games from Xbox Game Studios,” writes Spencer, as a part of a long list of promises to players, game developers, and content creators, based on the feedback Microsoft has received over the last few years. “Titles we release in the next couple of years—like Halo Infinite—will be available and play great on Xbox Series X and Xbox One. We won’t force you to upgrade to Xbox Series X at launch to play Xbox exclusives,” he continued. These comments are wonderfully aligned with Spencer’s previously heralded commitment to the gaming community and not just Xbox players alone but gamers as a whole.
Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty had similar sentiments to share earlier this year, “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and Series X that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content,” an encouraging statement that should resonate with anybody that has bought a device, only to have an upgrade suddenly announced not long after.
Along with Smart Delivery, the expansion of Game Pass and various other endeavours mentioned in Phil Spencer’s most recent post, it’s obvious that Xbox is trying to connect with their fanbase and perhaps with gamers outside of that fanbase in a more personable manner. As an avid gamer on all platforms, I think the sense of unity embedded in Spencer’s sentiment is paving a great path toward the future of gaming and the next generation of consoles and it’s something everybody in the gaming world should be looking forward to.