LogInAccording to him, even creating "great games" would not be enough to resolve this problem.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has recently acknowledged that his company cannot surpass Sony and Nintendo in the console market race and noted that even producing "great games" would not solve this issue.
During an episode of the Kinda Funny Games podcast, the head of Microsoft's gaming division shared his thoughts on the competition between Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo in the console market. Spencer expressed his belief that Xbox has consistently held the third position in this race and that the dominance of the other two companies makes it extremely challenging to move up in the ranks.
"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter," he said. "When you're third place in the console marketplace and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that will make being Xbox hard for us, as a team, that's on us, not on anybody else."
Spencer believes that the console market has undergone significant changes, and having an extensive collection of outstanding games is no longer sufficient. According to him, gamers nowadays value their accumulated digital game library over the years.
"I see commentary that if you just build great games everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way," Spencer said.
Spencer also admitted that Xbox is considerably lagging behind its competitors, having lost the Xbox One generation, which was a crucial period in the industry's history.
"We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation where everybody built their digital library of games," he explained. "90% of the people every year who walk into a retailer to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems and their digital library is there."
"I see a lot of pundits out there that kind of want to go back to the time when we all had cartridges and discs and every new generation was a clean slate and you could switch the whole console share. That's just not the world that we are in today. There is no world where Star Field's an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen."
During the same interview, Spencer discussed the underwhelming release of Redfall. He expressed surprise at the disappointing reception of the game and apologized for its initial release condition. He also mentioned that developer Arkane Austin is committed to improving the game and will focus on enhancing its features.
You can watch the full interview with Phil Spencer above or on the Kinda Funny Games YouTube channel.
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