Yes, Microsoft absolutely has the right to make Starfield a console exclusive for Xbox, I understand that. What I rolled my eyes at is Spencer saying 'We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games' when he and Microsoft are determined to foreclose an entire console audience of PlayStation consumers from future Zenimax + non-COD ABK titles.
Again, it's their right to do so since they now directly own the IPs + studios, but for PlayStation gamers like myself our options for those titles will now be either having to have a constant internet connection to stream from a subscription service that costs at least $200 annually or spending hundreds of dollars, and for some PC setups thousands of dollars, to have hardware to run those games natively. Not a great set of choices to say the least.
It is what is at this point, so we'll just have to wait and see how things play out over the coming months and years. I will say that I'm curious if the Xbox division is going to start reporting more hard quantitative numbers in future Microsoft quarterly reports now that Microsoft has spent nearly $80 billion on the Xbox division over the last few years. Probably not for the upcoming Q4 financial report next week, but perhaps starting with the October financial report we'll see Microsoft provide more hard numbers on Gamepass subscription numbers for instance. I would think that investors would want to put the division under greater scrutiny now that the company spent so much money on them recently.
You are looking at his comments from the wrong angle. He is saying it against Sony, not including Sony.
It's "compared to Sony, Microsoft let's people play their games in more places".
You like console? We put our games on Xbox. If you can't afford to by a XSX, we have even made a cheaper Xbox for you.
Have a PC? We will let you play our games there as well. You don't want to have to use the Microsoft store? Fuck it, we will put them on steam as well.
You only have a mobile phone? Cool, we will let you play via Xcloud if you want.
You are on Nvidia cloud? You can play there if you want.
You want to own games outright? No problem, you can buy them outright. You prefer the subscription model where you pay a monthly fee and get access to all our games? Ok, here is Gamepass.
How does Sony compare?
You can only play their games day and date on PlayStation. They may, or may not, release the game on PC 12 months later, or maybe 24 months later. Not sure. They will get back to you.
This is what Phil is referring to. Sony isn't some over arching, important sector that is entitled to anything. He isn't saying PlayStation is one of those places you can play on. All the owners of PlayStation can play Xbox games via a number of different ways. You can play it on your fridge if you really wanted to.