The whole "This is an Xbox" campaign that Microsoft unveiled yesterday really spelled out a key new message - that Microsoft is trying to consider every single gaming device as something that you can play Xbox games on.
We knew it'd prove controversial, and it has been. The main source of controversy comes from the console purists, who question whether this sparks the beginning of the end for Xbox consoles. Whether that'll be the case remains to be seen, but Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is keen to insist that console remains a focus going in 2025.
Speaking to Rolling Stone this week, Phil confirmed that Xbox will "definitely" create more consoles and other hardware in the future, but the marketing campaign is based around the fact that PC and cloud are driving the most growth:
"We’ll definitely do more consoles in the future, and other devices."
"Our biggest growth in Xbox players is on PC and cloud. The console space all up isn’t growing, across all of them. We love those customers, but in terms of continuing to expand and grow Xbox, it’s about PC, it’s about cloud, ad it’s about making our games more available in more places.”
Why is "This is an Xbox" beneficial to console owners, then? Well, as Phil says, Microsoft Gaming clearly needs to tap into the PC, cloud and mobile markets as much as possible in order to grow and achieve success in the future. Without that, the suggestion is that console on its own couldn't sustain the brand as time goes on.
And yeah... that makes sense. PlayStation and Nintendo sell more consoles than Xbox these days, and if there's no growth across the entire industry in that area, it's seemingly time for a change. If the success of other platforms means that Xbox can continue to make consoles, that's surely a good thing - that's how we're looking at it, anyway!