Xbox Exec Talks Investment, Single Player, and More: “Gaming Is Playing a Bigger Role in the Company”

Giuseppe Nelva August 22, 2018 8:51 AM EST

Xbox Games Marketing General Manager Aaron Greenberg talks about the efforts made by Microsoft to diversify the content created by its first party studios.

Back at E3, Microsoft announced the acquisition of four studios and the creation of a brand new one. At Gamescom 2018 DualShockers had a chat with Xbox Games Marketing General Manager Aaron Greenberg about this new course for the house of Xbox.

Greenberg mentioned that what we’re seeing is Microsoft stepping up its commitment to first party titles.

“It’s an exciting time. While we don’t pre-announce things, I think you’re seeing that the level of commitment is there, and that we believe in continuing to grow that content.” […] “Know that the company is focused and investing to continuing to grow our content, and we’re gonna be bringing more and more games to our fans no matter what device they’re playing on, and growing services like Xbox Game Pass.”

Asked whether Microsoft is looking at single player story-driven games with a renewed eye, Greenberg mentioned that the company looked for studios that would broaden the diversity of its content.

“We love single player games. […] It’s something that we absolutely believe in, and you’re right. I think the thing about these studios that makes them unique is really first and foremost, they are incredibly talented developers that make really high quality games. Most of these tend to be focused — If you think about Compulsion, or Ninja Theory, or Undead — they’re make games that are uniquely different from what we’re doing today in our first-party studios. These games are different than Forza, or Halo, or Gears, or some of the franchises that people know us for. That’s gonna add to the diversity of the content. […] We want people to make great games, so we want to give them the independence and the focus to go do that. Ultimately we know that all the data shows that gamers like to play a wide variety of games. People want to play co-op games, they want to play multiplayer games, and they want to play single player games, and we wanna make sure that we have the best of those games coming out of those internal studios as well.”

He also explained why Microsoft ramped up its investment in gaming:

“I think first is that gaming is playing a bigger role in the company. The fact that Phil Spencer is supporting directly the CEO, and just the importance of gaming as a strategic investment for the company, it’s never been more focused than what we’re seeing today. There is a lot of exciting opportunities for us to leverage all the power and resources that we have at Microsoft. We talked about things like Microsft AI […], or the whole Azure cloud theam and what they’re able to do there, as we think about the future of game streaming and cloud is really exciting. But for me what I really love about this team is that we’re really customer-obsessed. We put our fans first in everything we do. That’s why you see investments in things like Game Pass.”

For now, Microsoft’s initiatives seem to be bearing fruit. Just a few weeks ago the company announced a massive 39% improvement in gaming revenue year-on-year.

If you still don’t have an Xbox One X, you can purchase one on Amazon. If you prefer something less over-the-top, you can grab an Xbox One S.

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