Following the Xbox Game Showcase 2024, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was interviewed by Ryan McCaffrey on the IGN Live stream.
The executive went through a lot of topics, such as the long-rumored Xbox handheld, which, despite insiders pointing to the contrary, was once again a no-show. That said, Spencer did not shy from commenting on the possibility, albeit in a vague way:
The future for us in hardware is pretty awesome and the work that the team is doing around different form factors and different ways to play is something I’m incredibly excited about. Today was about the games. We showed a new all-digital Xbox Series X console. We will have a time to come out and talk more about the platform. But I think we should have a handheld, too.
The Xbox handheld is likely being made, then, but it’s simply not ready to be shown yet. When asked whether it would be a cloud-only device like the ones released by Logitech and Sony, Spencer said that would not be the case, as he believes being able to play games locally is ‘really important’.
The Xbox executive also chimed on Doom: The Dark Ages coming to PlayStation 5, confirming that the same choice may be made for other first-party games at some point.
On Doom, it’s definitely one of those franchises that has a history on so many devices. It’s a franchise that I think everybody deserves to play. I was in a meeting with Marty (Stratton from id Software) and the team a couple of years ago, and I asked Marty what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to ship it on all platforms. I said let’s go do that. It was as simple as that.
I get a lot of questions about, hey, if I’m an Xbox owner what does it mean? What I want to say, and I thought it showed up so well in the show today, you saw an amazing collection of games that are coming to Xbox that they’re going into Game Pass day one. Game Pass showed up so well. If you buy the game on our console, you get to play it on PC as well with the cross-entitlement stuff. We’re also focused on future hardware with forward compatibility. Our commitment to our Xbox customers is you’re going to get the opportunity to buy or subscribe to the game. We’re going to support the game on other screens and you are going to see more of our games on more platforms and we just see that as a benefit to the franchises that we’re building.
Spencer also shared some data on Xbox engagement: Microsoft is registering more console users than it has ever had, and game sales on consoles are up double-digits year over year. He briefly mentioned PC and cloud growth, too.
