Phil Spencer: “Investing in First-Party”

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer gave an interview at China Joy 2015 (China’s version of E3), where he discussed investing in first-party titles and his thoughts on third-party exclusives going forward.

“My Strategy is more around our own first-party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own, and probably fewer exclusive deals for third-party content. I want to have strong third-party relations, but paying for many third-party exclusives isn’t our longterm strategy.

This year, the fact that we’re shipping Halo 5, Gears of War, Forza 6, Fable, we can only do that and build that best line-up we’ve ever seen really on the back of franchises that we own. It’s great to have Tomb Raider as part of our line-up, but investing in first-party, you’ll see more of that at Gamescom next week, is really core to our strategy.”

This interview comes after news broke about Rise of the Tomb Raider getting a release date on other consoles. The general consensus about the new Tomb Raider was that it would be a timed-exclusive. Publisher Square Enix confused fans during the reveal for the game when they said it would be “Xbox exclusive,” only to correct themselves later.

Investing in new first-party titles is something the Xbox 360 lacked. Aside from Gears of War, Kinect titles, and flooding the market with JRPG’s, Microsoft did not deliver new AAA ips as well as its competition.

However, under Phil Spencer, the Xbox brand is headed in the right direction. Spencer seems to be giving fans what they have been clamoring for; which is evident with the Xbox One’s backwards compatibility feature.

The interview was very raw, with the camera often shaking throughout the video. But in addition to new ips, it covered Windows 10, the elite controller, how backwards compatibility will work, and more.

Expect more news on possible first-party titles at Gamescom 2015. Microsoft will deliver their conference on Tuesday, August 4th at 7am Pacific.