It's been five years since Xbox boss Phil Spencer joined PlayStation's Shawn Layden and Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aimé on-stage at The Game Awards 2018 - delivering a lovely speech about unity across the gaming industry. Half a decade on, as part of a recent Q&A session ahead of this year's awards show, TGA host Geoff Keighley looked back on the now-famous gaming moment.
During this Q&A chat, Keighley was asked about whether such a coming together could ever happen again. The host was doubtful of a repeat despite being open to one, and he also took a few moments to discuss the "special" circumstances at TGA 2018:
"It was a special time when we did that, it was unique, and I think to repeat that moment - I don't know, you can't do it every year. If there was a reason for that to come together in an interesting way I think it could happen [again]. I was really proud of that, I was so excited when we finally were able to make that happen.
The stars aligned, it worked out, it was amazing, and I now focus on other things that we can do and not necessarily like 'let's do that moment again'. But yeah, we're open to it if the stars aligned, as I said."
As for this year's show, we're not entirely sure what to expect aside from the Baldur's Gate 3 release date announcement for Xbox. There's been some controversy already about Bethesda's Starfield not making the GOTY nominee list, but there are some Xbox titles up for other awards at the show - including Starfield in the 'Best RPG' category. We'll have to see how everything shakes out when the show goes ahead on December 7th.
As for a moment like this specifically, we agree that the 2018 coming together was special, and after everything that's happened over Microsoft's ActiBlizz deal since - we can't see something like it happening again anytime soon!