Microsoft Looks to Improve Its First-Party Output in the Future
The PS4/Xbox One console generation is going to come to a close in the next few years and, while the PS4’s first-party lineup has (mostly) been met with critical acclaim, the Xbox One’s first-party titles haven’t been as well-received.
However, according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s new studio acquisitions will lead to better first-party Xbox games.
While speaking with Kotaku at E3 2019, Spencer said that the “quality of first-party is very important” and that the acquisitions “really create room for us to focus on quality.”
“We did reach a time in our first party where the number of games and studios that we actually had and were investing in put a lot of pressure on everything that we were doing,” Spencer said. “And it became more difficult to manage a portfolio when you kind of needed everything at any point to hit the date that it had picked three years ahead of time at the very high level of quality.”
“The support that we’re getting now and we’ve had over the last couple of years has allowed us to invest in our first party, adding eight new studios and really create room for us to focus on quality,” he continued. “I feel good about what Rod [Fergusson]’s done [at Gears studio The Coalition], what Bonnie [Ross] has done [at Halo studio 343 Industries], what Alan [Hartman] has done with Turn 10, and what Helen [Chiang]’s been doing with Minecraft.”
With Project Scarlett coming out next year and several new first-party studios, Microsoft is poised to make a comeback against Sony with its next-generation console.
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