Microsoft has control issues | This Week in Business

01.11.2023 - 15:51 / gamesindustry.biz / Phil Spencer

This Week in Business is our more-or-less weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check every Friday for a new entry.

We know it's a little early for This Week in Business, but Brendan's travelling to Montreal for MIGS next week and probably won't be able to fit in a column around that, so he figured he may as well double-up this week with two columns. As for "The rest of the week in review" section, that will be in the Friday column, when there's a bit more week to review.

Remember when Microsoft announced the deal to acquire Bethesda in 2020, and Xbox head Phil Spencer heavily implied it wouldn't be making the games exclusive?

QUOTE | "This deal was not done to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documentation that we put together was: 'How do we keep other players from playing these games?' We want more people to be able to play games, not fewer people to be able to go play games." – Spencer in October of 2020.

And remember how on the very day the acquisition was finalized, Spencer confirmed that Microsoft was absolutely going to make future Bethesda games exclusive to Xbox and PC?

QUOTE | "Now that everything is official, we can begin working together to deliver more great games to everyone… With the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players." – Spencer in March of 2021.

Spencer might have regretted making things that obvious, as Microsoft's apparent backtracking became a point of contention during the extended regulatory review of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition.

So with the Activision Blizzard deal closing just a few weeks ago, it's a little surprising that we're already seeing some anti-consumer overtures from Microsoft.

Last weekend, Windows Central reported on a Microsoft move to prevent unlicensed third-party controllers from working with Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S consoles.

QUOTE | "Microsoft and other licensed Xbox hardware partners' accessories are designed and manufactured with quality standards for performance, security, and safety. Unauthorized accessories can compromise the gaming experience on Xbox consoles (Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S.) Players may receive a pop-up warning that their accessory is unauthorized. Eventually, the unauthorized accessory will be blocked from use to preserve the console gaming experience." – A Microsoft representative gives the company's explanation for the move.

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