Via Variety:
Sea of Thieves Success/Xbox Exclusivity
variety.com
Full statement:
Sea of Thieves Success/Xbox Exclusivity
Xbox Game Content and Studios President Matt Booty on ‘Beginning to Hit Our Stride,’ Game Pass Strategy, ‘Fallout’ Update, Studio Closures and More
Fresh off the Xbox Games Showcase, Matt Booty talks subscription strategy, ‘Call of Duty,’ ‘Fallout,’ shuttering Tango Gameworks and more.
variety.com
Full statement:
Interviewer: "I'd love to know if you could speak about what the results of bringing the first four games to PlayStation and Switch are and what titles you may be thinking of doing that with next.
Matt Booty: "We really set up those four games and if you look at the four games we picked, it might seem as a bit of a grab bag or odd assortment, but it really was set up and designed so we could test a variety of content and see especially what the reception would be and for that content. And, also, in some cases we have got teams, like the Minecraft team or the CoD team that have been shipping multiplatform for literally decades and then we've got teams where that's a new muscle to build.
So we had some business experiments we wanted to run and we also just mechanically wanted to start to build that muscle and see what was involved. So some of the smaller games like Grounded, like Pentiment, like Hi Fi Rush, I would say it was great to see some of the positive review scores and great to see some of the positive fan reception. But the one that we really focused with support and went out and promoted was Sea of Thieves.
We have been really pleased with what we've seen on SoT. Just in terms of some things that I can share that were encouraging to us is that when we launched SoT on PS5, we saw an uptick in engagement on Xbox and on PC. So again, there is this thing where there are more people coming into the franchise which causes more excitement which actually grows the franchise overall, which if you want to be sort of direct about it from a business POV allows us to reinvest in that franchise and continue to grow it. So, that was sort of one of the first things we wanted to see.
Another really interesting, encouraging stat is that about half of the people playing on PlayStation were playing with people on other platforms so this is about expanding that community. It's one of the things that's core to our Xbox promise of letting people play where they wanna play with the people they wanna play with on the devices they play with and it's encouraging that we didn't see a vertically insulated community there. That the work the team put into being best in class in cross platform play really paid off because we saw people engaging off their device ecosystem which was great.
The other thing was, it brought new players into SoT. One of the goals all of our franchises have, and we have across the industry, is how do we grow? That was really great to see it brought in new players that had never played SoT before.
So, I think we consider that a success. We will continue to make those decisions individually on a case-by-case basis. We are absolutely committed to having launch exclusives on Xbox. It is part of our core promise. And we want to continue to bring our games to more players on more devices going forward. And we certainly have got experience on that with things that have historically been multiplatform for so long."
Interviewer (paraphrasing): We are seeing bundling in streaming like cable. Do you think with your relationship with Sony and Nintendo we will start to see walls come down?
Matt Booty: "Obviously I can't speak on behalf of Sony or Nintendo, but I'll say, in each case we have great working relationships with Sony and Nintendo. Again, our portfolio consists of games that have shipped on those platforms for 10, 15 years and that doesn't happen without a great partnership with them and so we have a great working relationship.
I think, as you point out, as gaming becomes a bigger part of pop culture, as the number of gamers on the planet hits 2 billion, 3 billion and continues to grow, that it's inevitable that we see content seeks to be everywhere and that we're gonna see some blending across the boundaries and differences that maybe have existed historically. For us, it comes down to maintaining that player first focus. We wanna be where the players are. Our device, the Xbox, will always be core to what we do. The console is foundational to what we do. But going back to 2016 when we started day and date on PC, when we started branching out to cloud streaming, take your games anywhere, focusing we get things right like Cloud Saves. (Tangent about friction across saves and ecosystems)
I think we will see more of that going forward. What the future holds for those trends I don't have that crystal ball. I do know we are going to follow our fans, follow where they wanna be, and as gaming grows alongside traditional forms like Music and TV, you will see some things happen in gaming that have happened over the last 10 years of linear media."
Matt Booty: "We really set up those four games and if you look at the four games we picked, it might seem as a bit of a grab bag or odd assortment, but it really was set up and designed so we could test a variety of content and see especially what the reception would be and for that content. And, also, in some cases we have got teams, like the Minecraft team or the CoD team that have been shipping multiplatform for literally decades and then we've got teams where that's a new muscle to build.
So we had some business experiments we wanted to run and we also just mechanically wanted to start to build that muscle and see what was involved. So some of the smaller games like Grounded, like Pentiment, like Hi Fi Rush, I would say it was great to see some of the positive review scores and great to see some of the positive fan reception. But the one that we really focused with support and went out and promoted was Sea of Thieves.
We have been really pleased with what we've seen on SoT. Just in terms of some things that I can share that were encouraging to us is that when we launched SoT on PS5, we saw an uptick in engagement on Xbox and on PC. So again, there is this thing where there are more people coming into the franchise which causes more excitement which actually grows the franchise overall, which if you want to be sort of direct about it from a business POV allows us to reinvest in that franchise and continue to grow it. So, that was sort of one of the first things we wanted to see.
Another really interesting, encouraging stat is that about half of the people playing on PlayStation were playing with people on other platforms so this is about expanding that community. It's one of the things that's core to our Xbox promise of letting people play where they wanna play with the people they wanna play with on the devices they play with and it's encouraging that we didn't see a vertically insulated community there. That the work the team put into being best in class in cross platform play really paid off because we saw people engaging off their device ecosystem which was great.
The other thing was, it brought new players into SoT. One of the goals all of our franchises have, and we have across the industry, is how do we grow? That was really great to see it brought in new players that had never played SoT before.
So, I think we consider that a success. We will continue to make those decisions individually on a case-by-case basis. We are absolutely committed to having launch exclusives on Xbox. It is part of our core promise. And we want to continue to bring our games to more players on more devices going forward. And we certainly have got experience on that with things that have historically been multiplatform for so long."
Interviewer (paraphrasing): We are seeing bundling in streaming like cable. Do you think with your relationship with Sony and Nintendo we will start to see walls come down?
Matt Booty: "Obviously I can't speak on behalf of Sony or Nintendo, but I'll say, in each case we have great working relationships with Sony and Nintendo. Again, our portfolio consists of games that have shipped on those platforms for 10, 15 years and that doesn't happen without a great partnership with them and so we have a great working relationship.
I think, as you point out, as gaming becomes a bigger part of pop culture, as the number of gamers on the planet hits 2 billion, 3 billion and continues to grow, that it's inevitable that we see content seeks to be everywhere and that we're gonna see some blending across the boundaries and differences that maybe have existed historically. For us, it comes down to maintaining that player first focus. We wanna be where the players are. Our device, the Xbox, will always be core to what we do. The console is foundational to what we do. But going back to 2016 when we started day and date on PC, when we started branching out to cloud streaming, take your games anywhere, focusing we get things right like Cloud Saves. (Tangent about friction across saves and ecosystems)
I think we will see more of that going forward. What the future holds for those trends I don't have that crystal ball. I do know we are going to follow our fans, follow where they wanna be, and as gaming grows alongside traditional forms like Music and TV, you will see some things happen in gaming that have happened over the last 10 years of linear media."
