Xbox boss Phil Spencer has responded to reports that Microsoft are on track to eventually abandon the console hardware business.
If you thought such rumours might have been a bit odd, especially considering the fact that the company announced two new consoles at E3, you’d be right.
Spencer responded to these strange claims on Twitter. He asserted that Microsoft is doubling down on gaming, not abandoning it, and that the announcement of the Xbox One S and Project Scorpio should be all the proof we need.
quite
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) June 22, 2016
Yes, announcing 2 consoles, to me, would be a strange lead in to that.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) June 22, 2016
It certainly seems like Microsoft are committed to the console biz for a while yet. Project Scorpio is reported to be the most powerful console ever made – you don’t release something like that if you’re not in it for the long haul, surely?
Still, considering that the company has started a pretty major push towards Windows 10 gaming (all of their first party games announced at E3 will be coming to Windows 10), you could be forgiven for being a little suspicious.
The speculation seemed to originally spring from Analyst DFC, who said in an investor update:
The most immediate problem is Microsoft effectively killed the Xbox One Slim right out of the gate. If there were many Xbox 360, Wii U and even PlayStation 4 consumers interested in an Xbox One this holiday season they have now been told to wait until Scorpio arrives in 2017. Microsoft can only hope that the buzz around Project Scorpio goes away soon but with the cat out of the bag that is unlikely. The biggest issue is whether Microsoft will even have a game division by the time Project Scorpio launched. It is no small irony that the E3 events went on at the EXACT same time as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was announcing the $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn.
Still, that’s nothing but speculation. If the Xbox boss is telling us those reports are all bullshit, that’s good enough for me.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.