All eyes were on the recent Xbox Official Podcast, where Xbox leaders Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond convened to unveil the company’s vision and upcoming plans. While not every detail aligned with fans’ expectations, the trio shared an important sentiment hinting at a promising future for players on different devices.
In discussing cross-play and cross-save features, Booty emphasized that the company is looking to make their games accessible for more players. This could mean a new era where games with cross-play and cross-save features are the norm, allowing gamers to play with their friends on other devices or bring their saves with them across consoles—a convenience that isn’t as common as it should be.
Xbox Plans to Make Games More Accessible Across Platforms
As Spencer took charge of the podcast, addressing queries regarding exclusivity and revealing hints on current exclusives that would be making it to other platforms, Booty stepped in to spill the beans on the company’s vision for cross-play and cross-save.
“To me, the two key things are cross-play and cross-save. Those things allow us to deliver on the promise of Xbox, which is, play with your friends where they are, play on the devices you want, play the games you want.”
Acknowledging that this would only happen if their system can support it, he continued,
“Not all of our games today are necessarily built to take advantage of that. There still will be some games that don’t. As we bring more teams into the Xbox family, there’s some catchup to do as we get there. But that cross-play, cross-save is so fundamental to what we’re doing. I think it’s something that we, as First Party, get such a good benefit from being so close to the platform.”
Spencer later echoed Booty’s words, stating that this philosophy has always been an integral part of the company and therefore isn’t a “change in strategy.” He goes on to mention how buying a game once on Xbox or Windows makes it accessible for the consumer to play on either platform, stating,
“I think we’re the only platform that does this. It makes it possible for you not only to play with your friends wherever they are, but to know that you actually have multiple entitlements to the games. I think that’s a technology that I’d love to see applied to more platforms.”
The Team Could Be Frontrunners to a New Era of Cross-play and Cross-save Gaming
Booty and Spencer’s claims are music to many people’s ears, and combined with the release of four previously exclusive titles on other consoles very soon, it seems like the company is seriously backing up these promises.
Given the apparent trajectory of the company, we might not be too far away from an era where it’s extremely common to see Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and PC gamers seamlessly playing together in the same virtual lobby. The future seems bright for cross-platform gaming camaraderie.
Only time can tell whether these promises become reality. For now, fans are buzzing with anticipation, eagerly awaiting the big reveal of the four games that will be breaking free from exclusivity. Two of the four titles were revealed to be new games that are community-driven.
Do you have any guesses on which games are making the leap? What do you dream of seeing land on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch from the Xbox realm? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
