Last week Phil Spencer tweeted that Microsoft would address the future of the Xbox brand this week in an unspecified business event. Exactly what that means has now been clarified, and it’s a little bit odd.
Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty will lay out their vision for Xbox on Thursday, 15th February at 8pm UK time on the official Xbox podcast. I admit, that’s not quite what I envisioned when Phil mentioned a business event in his initial tweet.
Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast.
Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business. pic.twitter.com/TxwWJVUbgx
— Xbox (@Xbox) February 12, 2024
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This announcement is rumoured to be happening much sooner than Xbox and Microsoft originally planned due to the heavy speculation and leaks about games like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Starfield and even Gears of War coming to PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch.
Even now, there are constantly new rumours popping up from typically reliable sources describing a chaotic scene within Xbox as many employees and higher-ups aren’t happy with the plan. Indeed, there’s been interesting speculation that the leaks are coming from someone quite high-up at Xbox or Microsoft who disagrees with the plans to go multiplatform and who had hoped that sparking fan outrage could persuade Microsoft to shift direction.
At this point, the rumours and leaks have become so numerous and so detailed that it’s impossible to believe some sort of big change isn’t happening. The fact that Microsoft are holding an “event” at all, and including so much of Xbox’s leadership, would seem to confirm that something will be changing at Xbox, whether it’s all their games heading to other platforms or just a couple of them.
Whatever is announced, it feels like this is going to be a big moment in the history of our hobby and the industry, one that we might look back at for decades to come.
Still, a podcast kind of feels like a strange way to reveal the future of Xbox, doesn’t it?