‘I’m not trying to move them all over to Xbox anymore’: Phil Spencer explains Xbox’s PS5 release strategy
Microsoft Gaming’s CEO says he’d still prefer to sell games on Xbox, but won’t ignore other userbases
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has shed more light on the company’s decision to release more Xbox games on PS5.
In an interview with the XboxEra podcast, Spencer was asked about comments he made during an FTC hearing in 2023, in which he claimed that every time an Xbox-owned studio sold a game on the PS5 store, Sony‘s 30% cut was being used towards deals to block other third-party games from coming to Xbox.
Now that Xbox is releasing numerous games on PS5, Spencer was asked if he was now less focused about Sony’s 30% cut, and more focused on the 70% cut Xbox takes on each of its games sold on PS5.
Spencer replied that this was the case, and that trying to get PS5 owners to move to Xbox – instead of just selling games directly to them – was no longer a viable strategy.
“It’s maybe not what I was going to say on stand at the time but yeah, I would love to make all of the money for all the games that we ship right now,” Spencer told Xbox Era.
“Obviously we make more on our own platform, it’s one of the reasons that investing in our own platform is important.
“But there are people – whether it’s their libraries are on PlayStation or Nintendo, whether it’s that they like the controller better, they just like the games that are there – and I don’t want to then look at that and say ‘well, there’s no way that we should be able to build a business there, find fans of our franchises there.
“I’m not trying to move them all over to Xbox anymore. We’re all so invested in where our games are, let’s just allow more people to play. And yes, the 70% that we make on games on other platforms is helpful to us being able to build great portfolios, like we showed at Developer Direct, and I hope this will continue to show through the rest of the year.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Spencer was asked why Xbox’s recent Developer Direct showed PlayStation logos for the games it was showing, rather than using the strategy Nintendo and PlayStation usually implement for their presentations where they only show their logos during game announcements, and it’s later revealed they’re coming to other systems too.
Spencer replied that he feels transparency is important, and that if one of the games it features in a Developer Direct is coming to another platform, it won’t hide that fact in an attempt to suggest Xbox is the only option.
“I just want to be transparent with people,” Spencer replied. “If we’re shipping on Nintendo Switch we’re going to put that, if we’re shipping on PlayStation, if we’re on Steam, people should know the storefronts where they can get our games.”
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Stressing that he still feels Xbox is the best platform to play Xbox games on, he added: “I want people to be able to experience our Xbox community, and our games and everything we have to offer on every screen we can, and obviously not every screen is equal.
“There’s certain things we can’t do on the other closed platforms that we can do on open platforms, clouds, but games should be the thing that we’re focused on. This strategy that we have allows us to do big games, while also supporting our native platform from the hardware to the platform and services that we have, and that’s going to be our approach.
“And I know it’s not what everybody else is doing, but I just believe games should be the thing that’s at the forefront. Maybe it’s because of how I’ve grown up in this industry, I came building games, but I think the games are the things that I see growing in their strength on what we’re doing, and it’s because more people can play. So yeah, just trying to be open and transparent with people.”
