Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says Xbox Isn’t Looking to ‘Gatekeep Games’ on Its Hardware

In an interview on the GamerTag Radio podcast, Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer reinforced the company’s current strategy of releasing more first-party games on multiple platforms while telling the hosts that Xbox isn’t done making, well, Xboxes.

Early in the interview, Spencer responded to speculation that Microsoft would eventually exit the console-making business entirely. He said, “I think it’s fundamental to what Xbox is. It’s not lost on me that ‘Box’ is in the brand’s name.” He added that hardware is a “critical part of what we do.”

With Xbox games appearing more frequently on PlayStation 5 and Switch, Phil Spencer told GTR hosts Danny Peña and Parris Lilly that, as much as he wants “our hardware to win,” he’s noticed that in the last 20 years, it’s been “really games first, not platform first.” He stressed that the most successful games can be played across multiple consoles.

He added, “In the position I’m in, I look at hardware as a critical part of what we do, not trying to gatekeep the games off other places.” He reiterated that there’s still some work to be done to make Xbox games more playable on existing handheld PCs like the Steam Deck and Lenovo Legion Go. This is good to hear, considering an Xbox handheld is likely still a few years away.

Sony has followed a similar strategy over the past couple of years, with games like Ghosts of Tsushima, God of War, and Spider-Man 2 making their way to PC some time (often over a year) after being released on PlayStation 5. As making games becomes increasingly more expensive, releasing a game exclusively on a single console may not be financially viable.

Spencer also expressed his excitement about the Switch 2 and confirmed that Xbox would support Nintendo’s new console in some capacity with its games.

During the interview, we didn’t hear much about Game Pass. Xbox’s game subscription overhauled its pricing model over the summer, arguably ruining the best deal in gaming. For years, Game Pass has been touted as the best reason to get an Xbox as a place to play its Day One exclusives; I can understand why we hear less about the service, especially with the company’s current move to get games on other platforms that may not support Game Pass.