Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer is known to speak frankly. It is far from surprising, then, to hear him admit in an interview with IGN that Microsoft’s 2022 gaming output was too light than he or the company would have wanted. He also considers himself personally responsible for the shortcoming.
[…] Our commitment to our fans is that we need to have a steady release of great games that people can play on our platform, and we didn’t do enough of that in 2022, there’s no doubt. And fundamentally, that’s on me. I’m the head of the business.
The commitment we have to our customers to continue to deliver great games is something that I take seriously, the teams take seriously, and 2022 was too light on games. And I look at things like Pentiment, which came out in November, as a really high quality game, but there has to be more.
So we’re excited about getting to roll into 2023, have the Developer Direct. I felt really good about the games that we were showing. And then also knowing that Starfield is a game that we’d be able to highlight in its own show and then just start off 2023 with good momentum, and like you said, I think we needed that.
Indeed, as Spencer said, Microsoft published some very well-received games in 2022: two games from Obsidian (Pentiment and Grounded) and one game from the external team Interior Night (As Dusk Falls). However, all of them were low-budget releases rather than triple-A blockbusters.
That’s partly because of delays suffered by games like Arkane’s Redfall and Bethesda’s Starfield. Another game released in 2022 from a studio now under Microsoft’s umbrella, Tango’s Ghostwire: Tokyo, was and still is (until March) a console exclusive for PlayStation.
None of these problems should apply to 2023 anymore, though, which explains Spencer’s excitement for the new year. Tango’s other project Hi-Fi Rush shadow dropped last week to healthy sales and critical acclaim; Redfall is set to launch on May 2nd; Forza has been confirmed to launch in 2023; and Starfield is getting its own dedicated show shortly, where Bethesda Game Studios fans will presumably learn the final release date.
Will 2023 be the year of Microsoft and Xbox? It sure looks like that could be the case.
