Phil Spencer has confirmed that along with more game studio acquisitions, Microsoft promises to not raise Xbox prices. Ever since Sony announced that they were raising the prices for their PlayStation 5, many have been wondering if Microsoft and Nintendo would follow suit. Now it seems like those rumors can be put to rest.
$MSFT‘s @XboxP3 talks #Tencent, #JRPG‘s, and @discord – and explains why it’s not time to follow $SONY‘s hike in prices. #Xbox #PlayStation pic.twitter.com/BCIY0wE8Gt
— Squawk Asia (@asiasquawkbox) September 16, 2022
In an interview today, Phil Spencer, who is the CEO and face of Xbox, spoke about a rather controversial topic in the gaming industry today. When PlayStation decided to raise the prices of the PS5, Phil Spencer was asked if the Xbox would follow suit. To which he replied:
We are always evaluating our business going forward. So, I don’t think we can ever say that we will never do anything. But when we look at our consoles today, and you talked about — Series X and Series S, we think value is incredibly important. We love the positioning of the Series S in the market, which is our low-cost console. More than half of our new players that we are getting are coming through Series S.
The major things to note from this interview are that Xbox is committed to its base price and that Xbox will continue to accept additional studios and publishers. The PlayStation 5 turned out to be one of the most infamous console releases in recent memory. While it’s a great console that offers massive computing power on par with the Xbox Series X|S, most people can’t find themselves picking up the PS5 anymore.
When asked in the interview if Xbox had any plans to acquire any other publishers and developers, Phil Spencer replied with the following:
This is such a competitive market. I don’t think we get to press pause on anything. Uh you know, Tencent is the largest gaming company on the planet today and they continue to heavily invest in gaming content and game creators. Sony is a larger business than we are in gaming today and they continue to invest. When you look at the investments that we’ve made, it’s a highly, highly competitive market. We strive to be a major player here. We want to deliver great content for our players and we’re going to remain active. Like I said, whether that’s investing in our internal teams that are already building great games that people know and love. Whether it’s building new partnerships.
We might see more notable purchases of the same level as Bethesda and Activision, but many people have been increasingly worried about the monopolization of the gaming industry and how acquisitions this big reduce competition and hurt the products along with the consumers.
