In a fairly wide-ranging interview with outlet Variety this week, Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked plenty of questions about the Microsoft Gaming business, including how Xbox Game Pass is faring these days. However, when posed a question about the Minecraft movie and which IP Xbox is willing to risk going transmedia with, Phil went on an interesting tangent about gaming IP at Microsoft more generally.
The Xbox boss basically doubled down on the team's commitment to new IP - something we saw them produce very recently with the likes of South of Midnight. Of course, we're in a time now where lots of big companies are focusing on blockbuster hits, but we're hoping Microsoft gets behind these comments and continues to produce a wide range of new titles.
It starts with the fact we’re in the entertainment business. And whether you’re building games, movies, television, doing an album, you have to accept that you’re going to have a hit rate and it’s not going to be 100%, and making sure the culture inside of the teams is, 'We can do new IP. We can do new games. Some things will vastly exceed our expectations, and some, we will be disappointed by the results, and let’s learn and go forward as an organization.'
Phil also said that "the next thing is always the most important thing and you've got to make sure that you have a culture of teams that are willing to take risks and bets on doing kind of cool, innovative, new things", which again, we're hoping is backed up by Microsoft in the coming years. With the team now spreading out its revenue stream across PlayStation and Nintendo platforms, that future feels plausible.
As you've probably guessed from our glowing review and follow-up feature on South of Midnight, we really enjoyed Xbox's latest new IP - and the more of this sort of thing we continue to see, the better. We understand that blockbuster franchises are important, especially these days, but it's reassuring to see these comments from Phil & co. remaining committed to doing "cool, innovative, new things" over at Xbox.