Xbox Wanted To Win Players Over By Not Raising Prices To Match PS5, Court Docs Show

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has paid tribute to PlayStation boss Jim Ryan following the news that the Sony executive will retire from the Japanese gaming giant next year.

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass has proven to be quite a hit for Xbox players. This subscription service was introduced to allow players access to a wide range of video games at their disposal. For the past several years, we’ve seen the service evolve with cloud gaming first-party exclusives launching day one on the service, among several deals that brought in third-party video game titles to the service. However, don’t anticipate Microsoft to make a game that would only be accessible through Xbox Game Pass.

Phil Spencer has stated that Xbox players can see more AAA releases by Japanese studios come to the platform in the future. Speaking to Game Watch, Spencer said that Xbox will get more games described by the interviewer as “uniquely Japanese AAA titles” down the line.

There’s been a lot of talk about Phil Spencer and Xbox lately due to the leaked email issue that flooded the news channels last week. The brand and Microsoft were put under the spotlight in the worst way because of past statements that were made public by accident because of the FTC court battle they won. But even with those issues, Spencer is still taking time to build up the Xbox brand and assure gamers that big things are coming. For example, you might know that the Xbox line has never done well in Japan sales-wise.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said players can expect to see triple-A exclusives from Japanese developers in the future.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has revealed the one game we would love to see revived: MechAssault.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer would love to revisit the Mechassault/Mechwarrior IP but pointed out that, at this point, these are merely personal wishes.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it was raising the subscription prices for Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate in all markets except the US, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Columbia, and as many may have expected, it looks like it won’t be the only price hike we’ll see for Microsoft’s subscription service.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently claimed players could expect more Microsoft-published games coming from Japanese developers.

Microsoft made a number of announcements during its Xbox Digital Broadcast at Tokyo Game Show 2023, most of which revolved around Japan and Japan-inspired games and updates. Xbox boss Phil Spencer and Head of Xbox Creator Experience Sarah Bond talked about the importance of the Japanese market. "Japan will always have a special place in my heart for pioneering innovative ways to play, from the Game Boy, to PSP, to the Switch," Spencer said.

Microsoft is planning a mid-gen refresh for its Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, eyeing a release in 2024. A series of leaked court documents from the Microsoft vs. US FTC trial revealed a roadmap and concept images for its upcoming set of gaming systems, which also includes a new controller with gyro and haptic feedback. Codenamed ‘Brooklin,' the all-digital Xbox Series X boasts the same horsepower as the existing version, albeit lacking a disc drive. The console is cylindrically shaped and comes with a generous 2TB storage — up from 1TB — which I'm guessing is an SSD. It'll bear the same price tag of $499/ Rs. 54,990 and is slated to drop in late October, next year.

Over the weekend, over 120 documents were published to the United States District Court Northern District of California’s files website pertaining to the Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft Corporation case regarding Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.