Scarlett will learn from Xbox One’s launch mistakes, says Spencer

Xbox head Phil Spencer has pledged not to repeat the mistakes the company made with Xbox One’s troubled launch.

Spencer wasn’t on the leadership team during Xbox One’s 2013 launch, but the exec said he’s aware the console was “out of position” in terms of both price and power.

Although the platform eventually rallied with strong software and platform initiatives such as Game Pass, the stuttering start left it stuck in last place in terms of market share.

“I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price,” he told The Verge.

“If you remember the beginning of this generation we were a hundred dollars more expensive and yes, we were less powerful. And we started Project Scarlett with this leadership team in place with a goal of having market success.”

Spencer said he wants to be competitive with Project Scarlett, which is due to launch at the end of 2020.

“We had the discussion years ago ‘do we want to go do another generation?’ Yes, and do we think there will be multiple generations ahead of us? I actually think there probably is,” says Spencer.

“So we’re going all in. We’re all-in on Project Scarlett and I want to compete, and I want to compete in the right ways which is why we’re focused on cross-play and backward compatibility.”

At X019 on Thursday, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty said Xbox is “shifting focus” from studio acquisitions to a new phase of “execution and delivery.”

Xbox currently has “more [unannounced] games than we know what to do with” and 2020 will be “one of the most exciting line-ups we’ve had,” he claimed.