Rumors have been circulating the last month or two revolving around Xbox branching outside of their own ecosystem. It first started when we heard that Xbox was going to show Xbox Live coming to iOS, Android, and more surprisingly, Nintendo Switch. At first, we all thought that this was just another way for players to connect to the Xbox Live system to earn achievements for cross-play titles such as Minecraft. However, we then heard that Xbox was looking to bring Xbox Game Pass to the Switch as well, utilizing Microsoft’s new streaming service, Project xCloud. Now, we finally have a quote straight from the head of Xbox that backs up these reports.
According to GeekWire, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, stated some pretty substantial plans for their successful subscription gaming model. Phil stated:
“We want to bring Game Pass to any device that somebody wants to play on. Not just because it’s our business, but really because the business model allows for people to consume and find games that they wouldn’t have played in any other space.”
Phil has a great point here. Having a dedicated console that players have to buy to experience their games alienates a big audience. He goes into a bit more detail on that here when asked if this would cannibalize console sales:
“That is not where you make money. The business inside of games is really selling games, and selling access to games and content in means like that is the fundamental business. So if you open it up, the more often people can play, the more they’re enjoying the art form. It increases the size of the business.”
Xbox did not touch on how much revenue consoles bring in compared to software and other services, but the dip in console sales are available to see in the company’s latest quarterly report. Xbox Hardware dipped 19 percent compared to the last holiday quarter the year prior because of the release of the Xbox One X. However, even though hardware sales dropped, Xbox software and services rose 32 percent over the year before.
All of this talk leading up to GDC and eventually E3 has me incredibly excited. The thought of being able to play my Xbox titles and Game Pass games wherever I am is tantalizing to say the least. The future is about to be really cool.
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