Xbox: Phil Spencer talks about exclusives, services and the purchase of Bethesda

During a recent interview with the Xbox boss, Phil Spencer, spoke at 360 degrees of the future of the Redmond house in terms of exclusives, of the colossal acquisition of Bethesda and how the various Microsoft subscription services will progress in the near future. For what concern first-party stock of the American giant, Spencer heartened their fans by stating that two unannounced projects are on the way. We report in detail his words to the Gamereactor microphones: 

I can give you two, okay? One of these is from Compulsion. When I first saw We Happy Few, I found the art style and setting truly incredible. They are a young development team and they are still growing and learning. But looking at their projects, I love their ability to create totally new worlds and unique environments.

The other project is from The Initiative, our studio based in Santa Monica. I played what they are developing. The talents that we have managed to bring together in this studio led by Darryl Gallagher are incredible.

But that's not all, since Phil Spencer also clarified the matter linked to the acquisition of ZeniMax/Bethesda, stating that at the moment there has been nothing concrete, but only a declaration of intent. Furthermore, the Xbox boss reiterated that, given that the deal has not yet been concluded (although he expects the deal to be concluded at the beginning of 2021), he cannot say what the US software house titles could be exclusive. on Xbox Series X / S.

First of all, I would like to point out that we have not yet acquired ZeniMax. We have announced our intention to acquire it. Regulatory approval is currently underway, although we have not encountered any problems. We expect the deal to close in early 2021. I like to set the record straight for people to know, I don't sit down with Todd Howard and Robert Altman planning their future. Also, currently I'm not even authorized to do this, it would be illegal. Your question is completely bound, but right now I get a lot of questions: “Is this game exclusive? Is this game exclusive? " And at the moment, this is not my job as far as ZeniMax is concerned. My job is not to sit down and go through their portfolio and dictate what's going to happen.

Finally, Spencer he also paused to talk about Xbox Game Pass and how the service could evolve in the future. The company's goal is to reach as many players as possible, and after consoles, PCs and Android smartphones, the next step will be to land not only on iOS devices, but also on Smart TV, Chromebook and FireTV, without excluding a possible arrival on Nintendo and Sony consoles. Regarding the type of games available on Xbox Game Pass, Phil Spencer has temporarily closed the door to titles without an end, reiterating that for the company "it is essential to have games in the subscription that have a beginning, a half and an end. , to then move on to the next game ”.

For us it's all a matter of priorities, and of reaching as many players as possible. We switched to PC right after Xbox, because there are so many players globally who don't own a console. Then we moved on to mobile devices because there are a billion Android phones on the planet. It is significantly larger than any other console player base.

We still have iOS to reach, and I'm confident we'll get there soon too. We are still working on some of our PC technologies for larger screens, in terms of streaming and accessing iOS, and I think once we get over that, we'll look at other options. There are smart TVs, there are Chromebooks, there is Amazon's FireTV. We will prioritize based on where we would find more new players, to whom we could of course bring our content.

I love Switch, I love PlayStation, honestly, I think they have done an amazing job as part of this industry. I'm not sure these will be the next big user group for us, but we're open to any dialogue.