Microsoft’s head of Xbox Phil Spencer spoke at the GeekWire 2015 summit for an interview with GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop who wasted no time addressing the elephant in the room, the PS4’s massive sales lead over the Xbox One.
“Sony’s having incredible success with PlayStation 4, and they’ve earned that,” Spencer said. Later in the interview Todd Bishop directly asks Phil Spencer if he believes the Xbox can beat the Playstation this generation, to which Spencer replies with doubt, stating “They have a huge lead, and they have a good product.”
Spencer points to the fumbled launch and reveal of the Xbox One all the way back in May 2013 as the primary reason the Xbox isn’t performing as well as the competition. The successor to the incredibly popular Xbox 360 got off to a polarizing start when then head of Xbox Don Mattrick announced the Xbox One would not be able to play re-purchased games and had strict DRM policies, meaning the console would always have to be connected online to run games.
“The team in Redmond took as much of a hit as the external community did around our launch ” said Spencer on the topic of the launch, “Regaining the team was job number one when I started. And being very forthright with them about where we were and our ability to do things like beat Sony was critical.”
The Xbox One’s low total sales volume can directly be linked to their weak foreign presence. Despite strong U.S. numbers, the X1 falls far behind the PS4 in both Europe and Asia.
