I am not stuck in anything, this quote isn't outdated. Nobody at Xbox claimed that what the CFO said was wrong or that they changed their plans and strategy.
In fact, Spencer and Howard doesn't say anything about exclusives in that interview and not even mention if ESVI will be exclusive or not. Or if it would be the case it doesn't mention if Starfield or ESVI would be timed console exclusives or not.
You can read it looking at the complete conversation and focusing on what are actual Spencer quotes and what is added by the interviewer, and understand it as if they he was saying that didn't have a lot of big first-party FRANCHISES (notice he doesn't mention exclusives) and that thanks to the acquisitions now they have more.
That with Starfield they'd have one of the biggest games of the year and he expects to also ESVI to be the same, a first party franchise (remember, he mentioned franchises and not exclusives) as one of the biggest games of whatever year it gets released. And that the acquisition to make popular multiplatform IPs exclusives ("not about punishing any other platforms"), but that it's to ensure they'll have these game on their ecosystem (so add it to the catalog of GamePass, Cloud Gaming, etc).
Or you and ignore the context of the full speech and ignore the differences between quoted and unquoted parts, and to think that when he's supposed to say he sees ESVI as the same than Starfield he wasn't talking about the topic of his previous quote, getting more big first party franchises relevant as one of the biggest games of the year, but that instead was talking about something maybe Phil didn't say or refering to and that maybe it's a consideration added by the interviewer as context and explanation (exclusivity being the elefant in the room and that Starfield will be XB and PC only).
And to consider that when he says it isn't about punishing other platforms and that it's about having their games on their full ecosystem (including them Gamepass and Xcould) he means that they will turn them exclusive and that the important part for them is not to remove it from other consoles but instead to bring them to GP and their cloud gaming.
You could even consider that when he says "That would be true when I think about any of our franchises" he doesn't mean that what it's important to secure them for their ecosystem and secure a lineup of important 1st party content (exclusive or not) but that he meant all the games of all their franchises now will be full Xbox exclusives and that. Even if some time later they announced stuff like Minecraft Legends for PS and Switch, maybe you consider that they were lying or something and that Minecraft Legends won't be released on PS and Switch.
It's a similar case to the "we believe in generations" interview where some -including the interviewer- considered that Jim Ryan was saying that they weren't going to do any crossgen games, while he never said such thing in the interview and instead he said there that they were going to continue supporting PS4 during years after the PS5 release as they are doing.
TLDR: The interview doesn't contradict the Xbox CFO words. Mentions (maybe not said by the interviewer, not Spencer) that Starfield is (without specifying if full or timed) console exclusive and you can consider or not that Spencer said there that ESVI will be (who knows if timed or not) console exclusive or not. You can also even (wrongly) consider all future MS games will be console exclusive as well, something proven wrong as I mentioned with cases like Minecraft Legends.
And regarding timed console exclusives that originally were only announced as exclusive for a console hiding it was a timed exclusive we have many previous cases from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. This is my favorite one:
As I said, I think we may have a year or two after the Starfield release to know if it's a timed console exclusive or a full console exclusive. And even if Starfield and a handful big games more turn out to be a full exclusive instead of a timed exclusive the CFO can still be right and their strategy can be "first, better or best" instead of making exclusive everything they buy.
We don't know if Spencer doesn't say anything about exclusives in that the interview, but MS did say Starfield will release on XB and PC later.
But in any case Starfield launching on Xbox and PC only doesn't contradict what the CFO said at all. It could release on PC and Xbox only and then later to release on PS after a timed exclusive matching the "first, better or best" said by the CFO.
@Yurinka: You think Phil Spencer let GQ print an article based on an interview of him, and didn't fact-check the interviewers paraphrasing of things not quoted?
I give you a direct and literal quote from the CEO of the organization, he has said explicitly and in extremely clear terms that starfield will be on PC and Xbox only.
The fact that you're ignoring that, and then have the audacity to tell me that I don't want to listen to facts is hilarious.
No amounts of walls of text you post will change the fact that you are relying on a very old quote from a lesser authority instead of what the CEO himself has said more recently.
@adamsapple : That's not a Spencer quote, was Yurinka's point.
It's written in an article, unquoted.
But it's in an article about interviewing him... the idea that Spencer or his team didn't read the actual copy printed before letting it get posted is pretty far fetched. Like basic ass interview -> print stuff.
There's also the Greenberg tweets on this subject.
There a lot of confusion and changes internally at Microsoft about this subject.
They at first indeed said they will keep Starfield and The Elder of Scrolls 6 as the planned multiplatform release.
After they said it will be “best” or “first” on Xbox… but that was when the Series X marketing was suppose to be the world most powerful console in the world… they changed that due the repercussion of the developers not finding the performance delta being that well different.
And the actual instance is indeed the games will be Xbox and PC only. I think they really reached a solid stance.
Game isn't for me but it was announced back in 2016 that Kojima's game would be going to PC after the PS4 release and since 6 years ago, Sony wasn't even looking at PC, Kojima obviously got another publisher which was 505 Games. 505 Games recently accepted a PC Game Pass deal which is smart especially if they ended up losing any money on publishing the PC version. Smart business by 505 Games.
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