As we’ve already highlighted, Xbox boss Phil Spencer appeared on Major Nelson’s latest podcast earlier this week (you can watch the full 40 minute interview on the Xbox website), where he closed out the interview by talking a bit about his plans for the long-term future of Xbox, both in terms of the next couple of years as well as 3-10 years from now.
Discussing the success of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming (Project xCloud), Spencer noted that those services originated around five years ago, and that the team is still thinking that far ahead with new ideas.
“What are the things that are coming in the next year? I like to think about that as horizon zero. And then I think of horizon one of being 2-3 years out, and we kind of know what those things are, and what’s on the roadmap.
And then you have those [ideas] that are like, three to ten years out, and most of those won’t work, those are kind of investments that you’re putting in – backwards compatibility was one of those things of ‘hey, let’s go try something that probably won’t work, but we want to give it a try.’ And there are some things that I’m incredibly excited about that hopefully over the next year-or-two we’ll get to talk about…”
Spencer pointed out that his team is (obviously) focused primarily on plans for the present day and the next couple of years, but part of the job also involves experimenting with those long-term ideas that could be “real changers”.
“Our job running Xbox is to be in the moment and be thinking about the roadmap ahead, but also be experimenting with some things that have the potential to be real changers but also are risk-filled and technology-filled. Some cool things on the horizon there as well, it’s just an incredibly exciting time on the teams right now.”
What do you make of Spencer’s comments on long-term plans for Xbox? Give us your thoughts below.
