Gamescom 2018 has kicked off in Cologne, Germany and Xbox’s Aaron Greenberg gave fans a little insight into how the company views single-player games and how important gaming is to Microsoft in an interview with DualShockers.
“It’s an exciting time,” said Greenberg. “While we don’t pre-announce things, I think you’re seeing that the level of commitment is there, and that we believe in continuing to grow that content.
“Know that the company is focused and investing to continuing to grow our content, and we’re gonna be bringing more and more games to our fans no matter what device they’re playing on, and growing services like Xbox Game Pass.”
Specifically referring to single-player games, Greenberg noted that Xbox’s recent studio acquisitions announced at E3 help diversify its content.
“We love single player games. […] It’s something that we absolutely believe in, and you’re right. I think the thing about these studios that makes them unique is really first and foremost, they are incredibly talented developers that make really high quality games. Most of these tend to be focused — If you think about Compulsion, or Ninja Theory, or Undead — they’re make games that are uniquely different from what we’re doing today in our first-party studios.
“These games are different than Forza, or Halo, or Gears, or some of the franchises that people know us for. That’s gonna add to the diversity of the content.
“We want people to make great games, so we want to give them the independence and the focus to go do that. Ultimately we know that all the data shows that gamers like to play a wide variety of games. People want to play co-op games, they want to play multiplayer games, and they want to play single player games, and we wanna make sure that we have the best of those games coming out of those internal studios as well.”
As for Microsoft’s increased investment in gaming, Greenberg attributes this to Phil Spencer’s role on Microsoft’s Senior Leadership Team, reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Game streaming is also a perfect way to take advantage of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
