Microsoft Is Going Their Own Way With Xbox Strategy
Playstation 4 is outselling and outperforming the Xbox One on every measurable level this generation. It’s not even close, really. With over 40 million consoles sold, Sony can afford to play it safe. Microsoft can’t. With the announcement of Project Scorpio at E3 2016 and the new Xbox Play Anywhere program, it would be easy to assume that Microsoft’s Xbox strategy is a reaction to Sony’s success. Not so, if recent comments by Phil Spencer are to be believed.
Speaking to The Guardian, Phil had this to say: “Sony is doing incredibly well with the PS4 but they’re doing something fundamentally different from us. We’re not building a strategy in response to what they’re doing; we’re building a response to what I see customers and gamers asking us for.”
It’s not surprising that Microsoft would be cautious about their Xbox strategy messaging when by many accounts the brand is on shaky ground. But, in reality, isn’t every corporate strategy in response to something? If a competitor is beating you somewhere, you need a strategy to counteract that. Microsoft’s plan is to unify Xbox and the PC in some ways, but details are few and far between.
In general, Play Anywhere will allow players to cross-buy titles on PC and Xbox, and port over progress between the two much like Sony has done at times with PS4 and Vita. Cross-play isn’t guaranteed according to Microsoft, though. The first Play Anywhere title will be Armature’s ReCore this September.
Xbox is a proprietary platform, unlike the PC, which is more accessible from an app creation standpoint. So which way does the balance shift under unification? Does it swing towards a closed system, ala Xbox, or towards the openness of the PC? Up to this point, cross platform games like Quantum Break have been sold exclusively on the Windows store without many of the features PC players expect. Is that what gamers really want? Not according to Sony’s Andrew House.
At an investor relations event, House didn’t foresee Microsoft’s Xbox strategy changing how Playstation does business. “We’ve always tended to believe that a proprietary ecosystem offering a very well crafted, unified client experience is the way to go, and that sort of remains our strategy.”
Both strategies have merit in our eyes, so long as they are well executed. Sony’s core gaming experience is second to none this generation, and Microsoft is has a bunch of interesting features and products in the pipeline. Who will win? Our money is on the consumer.
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