He confessed to having and enjoying both a PS4 and Wii U

Mar 13, 2014 07:57 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft Game Studios' Phil Spencer was interviewed by Spike TV's Geoff Keighley during this year's SXSW Gaming Expo, and he has had some uniquely insightful things to say.

Weve already covered Phil Spencer saying that Titanfall is a "massive" test of both the Xbox One platform and Microsoft's Azure infrastructure a few days ago, and now the same YouTube user gerrenlaquint has revealed a larger chunk of what the Microsoft Game Studios' VP had to say.

In a nutshell, Phil Spencer shares his thoughts regarding the early days of Xbox, the fierce competition between console makers, the aftermath of E3 2013, the growing impact that free-to-play business models have on the gaming world, the general disappointment encountered so far with the Kinect and other topics.

Spencer's take on the cutthroat competition between console makers is particularly enlightening, especially his comments regarding the toxicity that surrounds platform fanboyism.

"There seems to be this natural faction that gets created around what console you own, and then this… I would call it 'unhealthy dislike' for people who own the other console.

"I think it should be competitive, but the competition is in the marketplace. I have ton of respect for people at Sony and the franchises they build. The same with Nintendo, or my friends at Valve… In the end what we all wanna do is to take this art form of playing games and experiencing the breaking down of the wall between the narrative and interaction [...] and just make a better form of entertainment," Spencer comments.

He continues by saying that he loves the dedicated fans the Xbox has, also stating his point of view that being a fan of Xbox doesn't mean you can't be a fan of something else or that you automatically have to be an antifan of some other brand.

He also reveals that he owns both a PlayStation 4 and a Wii U, and that he regularly plays games on them, learning a ton from what happens on those other platforms.

The main competition that fans are referring to as "the console war" is between Microsoft and Sony, and Spencer comments on the whole affair, stating that he doesn't see the competition between the two console manufacturers as a war at all.

"In terms of the concerns that people have in the social space, it's usually about how we're doing in the competition, against PlayStation, just to go directly towards that. They had a great launch. I would say, when I look at the PlayStation 4's launch and the Xbox One's… It’s been our best launch ever for an Xbox," Spencer shares.

He concludes by saying that only a year ago the whole discussion was whether consoles were even relevant anymore or whether the gaming industry had already moved beyond consoles. Yet, after the two giants launched their next-gen hardware platforms in November, it's now obvious that it's not an issue and that both consoles have had an amazing year, probably the best one so far.