Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has some thoughts on where Team Xbox is at right now and where the green machine can go from here, but the console maker needs to “pick a lane” with exclusive games, either way.
As Xbox Series X/S console sales continued to decline this generation, the company flip-flopped quite a few times when it came to its first-party exclusives. Microsoft went from releasing almost all of its games exclusively on PC and Xbox consoles to becoming a sort-of third-party publisher during Phil Spencer‘s tenure as head of Xbox – everything from Starfield to Halo: Campaign Evolved found their way to PS5.
In a chat with The Expansion Pass podcast (embedded below), Layden said most of Xbox’s current woes come from the company’s inability to commit to exclusives. “Or if they picked a lane, they didn’t stay in it very long,” he said. “Are you going to be a platform? A platform needs exclusives or else the platform has no meaning. Or are you going to be the biggest publisher in the world now that you have Activision and Blizzard? And if you’re the biggest publisher in the world, you almost have to be on every platform because that’s how the business model works. You can’t be successful at both.”
Layden did acknowledge that current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma seems to be trying to “right the ship” in recent months. “I hope she does it, though I don’t know what that looks like.” Since her appointment at the start of the year, Sharma kicked off a corporate restructure that’ll result in 3,200 lost jobs when all is said and done. She also signed Hideo Kojima’s Physint and bought back some console exclusives with Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution.
“This is your Dreamcast moment,” Layden continued, referring to when Sega abandoned its final console and decided to become a prominent publisher on its competitor’s systems. “It can be done. It’s been done before. So, that’s my advice. Pick a lane.”
Sharma recently shot down speculation about Microsoft selling Xbox, and said she wants to course correct “whatever it takes.” So far, the company’s so-called reset seems geared toward supporting its biggest franchises – your Elder Scrolls, Halos, Fallouts and Call of Duties. The next-gen Project Helix sounds like it’s still going ahead, too.
