2019-04-01_Official_Xbox_Magazine

The

name

game

consoles, X-Cloud, coming to PC in

much bigger way this year, doing some

things that we’ve been talking about

for a while on PC this year. This is a

year where it’s not strategery [sic], it’s

roll up our sleeves and show.”

Big spender

Spencer also spent the time

explaining the strategy behind those

studio acquisitions. “The real goal for

the studios, for me, is to get a large

enough studio base where we can

delight and surprise ourselves and our

fans with games,” says Spencer. “And

it’s on a regular cadence, so we’re

not always pinched to say, ‘Okay, well,

what can we announce?’ Now we can

say, ‘What do we have to announce,

and which of these things do we

actually want to announce and what

do we want to let sit and percolate a

little longer?’ This puts Microsoft in a

really great position, one in which the

company hasn’t been for a long time,”

admits Spencer.

There’s already plenty of

speculation floating around given that

Microsoft has been pretty vocal about

the fact it is developing a successor,

or even successors, to the Xbox

One, which is currently codenamed

‘Scarlett’. Will it take this opportunity

to formally announce the new

console(s)? Then there’s Halo Infinite,

which was only teased at during last

year’s E3. Will we get to see more of

what 343 Industries is cooking up

in the near future? And these are

just the things that we already know

exist. There’s bound to be some big

announcements of games coming

out of the roster of new studios.

Whatever it is that it’s hiding up its

sleeves, we’re sure to be in for an

exciting show from Microsoft. We don’t

normally like to wish the year away,

especially so early on, but E3 can’t

come soon enough. Q

Go big or

go home

With a solid foundation of studios, Microsoft

will be firing all cylinders at this year’s E

IT’S

SHOW

TIME

This year is
shaping up to
be something
special for Xbox.
Chatting to Larry
Hryb recently on
his Major Nelson
podcast, Microsoft’s very own Phil
Spencer went into some of the details
of his intentions with Xbox for this
year’s E3 and beyond.
“This is gonna be a fun E3 for
us,’ enthuses Spencer. “There was
obviously some news back in the fall,
and we had a discussion about should
we go big, should we save some
money? And decided, ‘No, we’re going
to do our thing and we’re going to
go and be as big at E3 as we’ve ever
been.’ And I love that opportunity.”
The ‘news’ being that Sony has
chosen not to attend this year’s E3,
which Microsoft has seen as a great
opportunity to take centre stage.
The timing couldn’t be better. Phil
Spencer and his team have been hard
at work for the past five years to put
Xbox at the forefront of providing the
best games available. The final part
of that strategy, it seems, was the
series of studio acquisitions that saw
first-party support increase to 13
studios. While the announcements of
the purchases didn’t reveal any new
games, the developers are now better
positioned to show the fruits of their
labour. “Now we’re in execution mode,”
Spencer explains. “I look at 2019
and where we’re going with future

On the latest episode

of Inside Xbox it was

revealed Microsoft

Studios has been

renamed ‘Xbox Game

Studios’. Matt Booty,

head of Xbox Game

Studios, sat down

with Larry Hryb to

explain the name

change. “The Xbox

brand has really come

to mean more than

just ‘console’,” says

Booty. “I think Xbox

really means playing

games with the

people you want to

play with on the

device you want to

play on, whether it’s

PC or mobile.”

INSIDER MICROSOFT’S E3 2019

“The developers

are now better

positioned to

show the fruits

of their labour”

ABOVE Phil

Spencer is

teasing a

massive E3 2019

for Xbox.

RIGHT It’s pretty

likely we’ll see

more of Halo

Infinite at the

show in June.

EXCITED? HORRIFIED? LET THE WORLD KNOW AT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/OXMUK

018 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE