Xbox Says Its "Brand Pivot" Was Driven By Gen Z Habits

26.03.2024 - 21:59 / thegamer.com / Phil Spencer / Chris Dring / Nintendo

It's a pretty strange time for Xbox owners, with some concerned about the future of the hardware now that the company has committed to launching its flagship exclusives on rival systems. Grounded, Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment have all launched on both PlayStation and Nintendo Switch systems, with rumors of bigger titles like Starfield and Halo following them refusing to go away.

It can be difficult to imagine why Xbox seems to be so keen on shifting away from its own hardware, but Xbox head Phil Spencer recently laid out some of the reasons behind the company's "brand pivot" in an interview with Polygon at GDC 2024. Aside from just wanting to raise Xbox's profitability, as Spencer stresses that the platform is still a business that needs to make money, he also wants Xbox to "maintain relevance with a younger audience."

According to Spencer, gone are the days of younger audiences that want an Xbox to just be one device that plugs into a television, and that the "Gen Z research" suggests people want all of their games in as many places as possible.

"This notion that Xbox can only be this one device that plugs into a television isn’t something we see in the Gen Z research," explains Spencer. "Because nothing else is like that for them. Some of them will have an iPhone, some will have an Android, but all the games and everything is the same. I can still get to TikTok on both of them, at least for now. All of their stuff is available wherever they want."

So for Xbox, our brand pivot - as we attract and maintain relevance with a younger audience - is ‘Xbox is a place where I can find the great games I want to.’

It's also rather telling that this stance from Spencer comes shortly after GDC, in which there has been less enthusiasm for Xbox as a hardware manufacturer than ever among actual developers. It was reported by GamesIndustry.biz head Chris Dring that Xbox is in "real trouble" on the hardware front, with sales "flatlining" across Europe.

He also claimed that a "major company" that released a game on Xbox last year told him that they "don't know why we bothered supporting it," which suggests at least a handful of developers are starting to consider releasing titles on Xbox more of an inconvenience. With those kinds of opinions floating around among big publishers, it's easy to see why Spencer is so keen on this "brand pivot," and appealing to Gen Z is just the icing on the cake.