In an interview with The Verge, Phil Spencer, the boss of Xbox, admitted that he was fully aware of the current economic situation. According to him, it is normal to see spending on video games shrinking as users deal with galloping inflation.
As you know, we are currently facing growing inflation which directly impacts the cost of essential expenses such as energy, food and housing. A question inevitably arises for the video game industry in this context: what is the place of entertainment and video games in general in this context?
A few days ago, Phil Spencer, the boss of Xbox, gave a river interview to our colleagues from The Verge during which the executive addressed several points. He first mentioned the future of the Call of Duty license on Playstation following the takeover of Activision-Blizzard. He was reassuring, stating that he did not intend to stick a knife in the back in Sony. Understand that Call of Duty will stay on Playstation no matter what.
Microsoft and Xbox are aware of gamers’ priorities
During this interview, the Xbox brand manager also talked about how the current economic crisis has affected the development of some games and the measures put in place by the manufacturer to try to help players in this difficult time.
“No one is claiming that game consoles and games are essential items. We are clearly in the entertainment space. We are not food or shelter,” he acknowledges. In other words, Xbox and Microsoft are well aware that gamers are being brought to revise downwards their expenses in the JV when energy or food prices rise.
In addition, Phil Spencer is aware that video games can have a definite impact on energy costs. This is why Microsoft is currently looking for new processes to reduce the energy consumption of its consoles and on PC. In this area, we already know that it is advisable to use the Xbox Series X/Series S energy saving mode to make substantial savings on their electricity bill.
Nevertheless, the boss of Xbox is confident about the health of the video game sector. “Games tend to be a bit more resilient and weather these periods better than other industries because we have good value for money.” For him, keeping old consoles like the Xbox One in operation or even launching a cheaper next-gen console like the Series S are essential to allow everyone to play according to their budget. And of course, the Xbox Game Pass remains an excellent alternative to play at a lower cost thanks to the subscription system.
