Xbox boss Phil Spencer issues thinly-veiled dig at Sony's PC strategy

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has issued a thinly-veiled dig at Sony over its PC strategy.

Speaking at part of a pre-E3, “What’s Next for Gaming” virtual briefing shown to press this week, Spencer took aim at Sony’s strategy of releasing its PlayStation-exclusives on PC years after they come out on console.

Here’s the quote from Spencer in full:

“Across the Xbox ecosystem, we’re now reaching hundreds of millions of people every month, and our total addressable market is going to grow while others are relatively static.

“As the Xbox ecosystem grows in both content and total size, it becomes more valuable to both players and our partners. So right now, we’re the only platform shipping games on console, PC, and cloud simultaneously. Others bring console games to PC years later, not only making people buy their hardware up front, but then charging them a second time to play on PC.

“And of course, all of our games are in our subscription service day one, full cross-platform included.”

Spencer doesn’t name Sony in his comments, but it’s clear which company he is talking about here.

Microsoft and Sony’s PC strategy is significantly different. Microsoft releases all its first-party games on PC at the same time as console. It also releases all its first-party games into subscription services Xbox Game Pass day-and-date. The upcoming Halo Infinite, for example, launches on Xbox consoles, PC and Xbox Game Pass simultaneously.