Xbox head says ‘Starfield’ won’t cause people to start “selling their PS5s”
Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox at Microsoft, has claimed “there is no world” where Bethesda‘s upcoming sci-fi game Starfield is “an 11 out of 10” that leaves fans selling their PS5s to play the Xbox and PC exclusive.
During an appearance on Kinda Funny Games (via Eurogamer), Spencer explained that he considers Xbox as sitting “third place in the console marketplace,” coming in behind Nintendo and PlayStation manufacturer Sony.
Touching on the topic, Spencer said that Xbox is “not in the business of out-consoling Sony, or out-consoling Nintendo,” and explained there “isn’t a really a great solution” to the company’s issue.
The Xbox executive went on to refute suggestions that “if you just build great things, everything would turn around”.
“It’s just not true that if we go off and build great games all of a sudden you’re going to see console share shift in some dramatic way,” shared the Xbox head, who said “there is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5s”.
Part of this, Spencer explained, was due to Xbox losing “the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games,” which meant players are less likely to switch away from consoles where they already have their digital libraries available.
However, it’s worth pointing out that Microsoft is currently in the process of appealing the Competition And Markets Authority’s (CMA) decision to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the UK.
As part of its efforts to push the deal through, Microsoft has painted itself as an underdog of sorts, despite the CMA claiming it has a “powerful position and head start” in the cloud gaming market.
Elsewhere in the interview, Spencer acknowledged that Xbox “let a lot of people down this week,” due to the poorly-received launch of Redfall.
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Andy Brown
NME
