After alleging that it was planning on launching Game Pass to other, competing platforms, Phil Spencer has squashed statements from Xbox CFO Tim Stuart. He had previously discussed these plans during the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, calling it a “change of strategy.”
Found within a follow-up interview with Xbox boss Phil Spencer with Windows Central, he outright says that the American console maker has no plans of bringing Game Pass beyond the console and PC. He then spun Stuart’s words, claiming that he meant that his “every screen possible” sentiment meant that it was going to focus more on software and services rather than hardware.
Really, this feels like Spencer doing damage control after an unauthorized reveal or Stuart’s words didn’t quite understand what the big boss was meaning during the no doubt dozens of board meetings discussing the future of Game Pass. Frankly, it would’ve been a massive shock if Xbox was looking at bringing its service to not just a neutral party like Nintendo, but also to a direct competitor like PlayStation.
“The thing I want to be focused on is how do we continue to innovate for people who’ve made the commitment to our hardware platform? And how do we continue to make sure that they feel great about their investment in what we’ve built […] I want us to continue to innovate, so people on our console feel like we’re making investments in console that matches their commitment they’re making to us.”
