Phil Spencer Is Not A Fan Of ‘Console Wars’

Xbox head Phil Spencer has weighed in on the Halo 5: Guardians split-screen debate. It becomes more about what piece of plastic I own than what games I’m playing. That doesn’t mean that can’t happen in a kind of socially connected VR environment, but to me it would be too bad if all gaming became people with head mounted displays on, headphones on, kind of blocked out from everything that happens. I’m going to actively push against that.

He continues to explain that he loves the social aspect of video games, mentioning one of his favorite things to do is playing these games with his children, watching them laugh and come together.

“Frankly, if I look at how Rare came out and Gears came out, and now Forza, I feel good that the teams all up have taken the lessons of last holiday of some teams missing the bar that they wanted to hit”, Spencer said. My job isn’t really to keep you from buying something else. Spencer feels he is there to announce what makes the Xbox One enjoyable rather than slandering what the competition does not offer and so on.

However, the familiarity of the audience to the storyline and characters – which he calls “one of the real strengths” of the game – makes the team not want to overuse “Halo” with too many releases. “I’ll say, obviously we have relationships with Valve, we have a relationship with Oculus around the VR work that they’re doing, but I’m going to say I kind of hope not”. The reason Satya’s (Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO) interested in gaming, the reason the Windows 10 focused on the consumer and gaming is so prevalent inside the company right now, is we see opportunity.

Spencer closed, “The things that are keeping me up at night are really all about that, and it’s the great thing about this industry, as I’ve said many times, is you do earn every customer”. Then when people bring up, “Well, what about Nintendo?”

That is why it isn’t surprising to hear that he isn’t a huge fan of Console Wars, nor is he upset that the PlayStation 4 is selling well. “I love the nostalgia of the couch co-op of what Halo did in the past, but I also know in the realities of the day with people’s busy lives, it’s not as easy to get everybody in the same physical place”.