In a recent interview, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer spoke about how cross-platform gaming will be the future of gaming. Even though exclusive titles are financially logical in the short term, he firmly states that bringing gamers together and not causing unnecessary friction is vital for the evolution of the game industry.
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The interview covered a lot of subjects, including metaverse, crypto, exclusive titles, and the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for $70 billion.
Spencer stated that gamers have already been in the metaverse for the past 30 years, where they’ve been inside many shared worlds, whether in World of Warcraft, Roblox, or racing games. He also argued that it’s normal for gamers to not wholly understand the metaverse concept; for them, they’ve already had avatars and voice comms in shared worlds, so what’s new?
He also talked about how cryptocurrencies might affect the world of gaming. The veteran CEO is cautious about implementing crypto into games as it might create a play-to-work culture where certain players would just become a workforce within the game to earn money.
When Emily Chang, the interviewer from Bloomberg Technology, commented about how Spencer is an advocate of cross-platform play and asked him why it is so important to him, Spencer replied:
“Maybe you, in your household, happen to buy an Xbox, and I buy a PlayStation. When our kids want to play together, they can’t because we’ve bought the wrong piece of plastic to plug into our television. It seems that the industry might put up these artificial constraints for near-term business dynamics, but reducing friction between our customers has to be the number one priority in the long run.”
He finalizes his answer by saying that nobody can know what platforms will even mean in 10 years and that definitions change over time. All they can say is that Microsoft wants more people to play Call of Duty for now.
Spencer also talked about the $70 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, saying that he supports the fact that this deal has been monitored and regulated so thoroughly.
The experienced CEO also mentioned that “They’ve been asking hard questions about their intent and what this deal means to them.” Even though he’s never done a deal this big, he feels optimistic about the progress they’ve been making and hopes that the agreement will eventually come to a close.
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