Phil Spencer doesn’t just want to bring Xbox to every screen, he also wants other stores to get into Xbox. Interviewed by Polygon during GDC 2024, the head of Microsoft’s gaming division said that I wanted to break the barriers which have historically limited players to making purchases in stores for each console’s first parties. In other words, he wants games to be able to be purchased on Xbox from other PC stores, such as the Epic Games Store, and not just from the official one.
Spencer doesn’t like closed ecosystems and you know that anyone who uses a PC doesn’t like having limitations when choosing which experience to have. That’s why he also wants to create something similar on consoles.
Furthermore, the current market is favorable to this transition, as he himself explained: “Moore’s law has slowed down. Console part prices are not falling as quickly as in previous generations”. Furthermore, the console market is not growing, with many players moving to the world of PCs and handheld devices. In short, the concept of exclusive official stores is losing more and more meaning, because the wall that would like to keep people in the console ecosystem ends up keeping them out.
Spencer’s goal is therefore to remove as many barriers as possible for gamers and content creators in order to make Xbox a meeting place where they can be free to choose. We will see how this plan comes to fruition in the future.
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