Phil Spencer believes the Xbox One is a games console first and foremost

Apr 1, 2014 23:31 GMT  ·  By

Phil Spencer, the new boss of the Xbox division for Microsoft, has confirmed that under his new leadership the group will focus much more on gaming and will make sure that developers, both internal and third-party ones, have everything they need to produce more great experiences, such as Titanfall.

Microsoft launched the Xbox One last year, but its official reveal wasn't exactly the most fortunate, as the company decided to focus on TV, entertainment, and sports on the console's first outing in the world.

This generated a huge amount of backlash from gamers who felt betrayed, even if Microsoft promised that at E3 2013 it would focus just on games.

This was just the first of many errors in communication on Microsoft's part, which then saw the departure of its leader, Don Mattrick, and of other executives, like Marc Whitten, more recently.

Now, Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer has taken over the Xbox division and emphasized to GameInformer that he was going to put a much bigger focus on gaming instead of other things.

"My goal, first and foremost, is to make sure that everybody understands that Xbox is a gaming brand and it’s going to be gaming first," Spencer said. "That’s a leadership principle that I will bring to the program from day one. It’s not that it hasn’t been there in the past, but if you put the studio guy at the head, you kind of know what you’re going to get."

Even so, Spencer doesn't want to abandon the idea of the Xbox One all in one device, so entertainment options will still be offered.

"If you’re going to be an incredible consumer electronics device in the home today, you’re going to do multiple things. We have always been, since the beginning, all about games at Xbox. I want to make sure that shows up not only internally, but also externally."

What's more, Spencer also wants more Titanfall-like experiences, with developers bringing a great title to the Xbox One and pushing sales of both the game and the console.

"It’s one of the things that makes me so happy about Titanfall, not just that it was on our platform, but to see a studio like Respawn – a brand new studio – have such a great success with their first game. [Titanfall is] another great testament to how great content leads to incredible usage and sales. It’s something I want every person on the program to understand, that we’ll be leading with gaming on Xbox One."

Spencer oversaw Microsoft's upcoming games so it's going to be interesting to see what he can do now that he has the reigns of the Xbox division overall.