Xbox chief Phil Spencer told XboxEra that Vole is pulling out of the console war. Instead, the company embraces a new strategy: putting Xbox games on rival platforms like PlayStation.
Spencer said: “I would love to make all of the money for all the games we ship, right? Like, we make more on our platform. It’s one of the reasons that investing in our platform is important. But there are people, whether it’s their libraries on a PlayStation or Nintendo, whether it’s they like the controller better, they just like the games that are there.”
Then came the real bombshell: “I’m not trying to move them all over to Xbox anymore.”
This doesn’t mean the Xbox Series X and S will suddenly vanish from store shelves. And there’s still a chance we’ll see another Xbox console in the future. But Microsoft’s shift in focus is impossible to ignore. It has been pouring resources into Xbox Game Pass, expanding cloud gaming, and slowly dismantling the exclusivity model that once defined console gaming.
Vole has yet to fully cross-platform all of its first-party and previously exclusive games. There are troubling signs that Game Pass could follow the industry trend of becoming simultaneously more expensive and worse over time. If Microsoft truly plans to ditch the hardware race, it must ensure its digital strategy doesn’t suffer the same fate as Google’s ill-fated Stadia.
Spencer said Xbox’s fastest-growing market is Asia, where cloud gaming and PC gaming dominate. He admitted that Xbox was never going to win over those players with a console alone.
“We were never going to catch that person with our console. So let’s find them in a way that works, and it’s better for Indiana Jones. It’s better for Xbox.”
If Vole can perfect cloud gaming and maintain a solid PC gaming presence, it could thrive without selling millions of expensive consoles. The challenge is ensuring that Xbox Game Pass and cloud gaming don’t follow the dreaded corporate playbook—offering a great product initially, only to jack up prices and cut quality later.
