‘Everyone Deserves to Play’: Why Xbox Head Phil Spencer’s ‘Doom’ Comments Struck a Nerve

Have you ever ever mentioned one thing after which realized that it was going to come back again round to hang-out you over and over? Xbox boss Phil Spencer could be spending his downtime together with his head in his arms after his most up-to-date assertion concerning the upcoming Doom: The Darkish Ages.

When taking this new assertion within the context of different issues Spencer has mentioned and different enterprise choices Microsoft has made, it calls into query the long run path of the whole Xbox platform.

“Doom is certainly a type of franchises that has a historical past of so many platforms,” Spencer instructed IGN following the Xbox Showcase. “It’s a franchise that I feel everybody deserves to play.”

A franchise that “everybody deserves to play.” What does he imply by that?

In the event you’re not tuned in to what’s occurring in video video games, Microsoft has begun publishing a few of its smaller video games, like Hello-Fi Rush and Grounded, on non-Microsoft platforms—the Nintendo Swap and Sony PlayStation 5.

The frequent knowledge amongst sport trade executives, in addition to avid gamers who’ve devoted themselves to a single platform, is that exclusives are good. They seem to be a necessity to show to your set up base why they need to purchase your sport.

If Microsoft is promoting video games on PlayStation and Swap, then what is the level of proudly owning an Xbox within the first place? That is the query posed by so many responding to this resolution from Microsoft.

The primary batch of video games to make the leap had been comparatively small video games, and ones that had garnered essential success or benefitted from multi-platform gameplay. Doom: The Darkish Ages, nonetheless, shall be one among Microsoft’s largest video games of 2025—and the corporate introduced, alongside the blood-splattered trailer, that the sport can be heading to PlayStation 5 as effectively.

“It is a franchise that I feel everybody deserves to play.”

Microsoft has a variety of franchises beneath its umbrella lately, due to a slew of high-profile acquisitions in recent times. Doom, Wolfenstein, Halo, Forza, Gears of Conflict, Name of Obligation, Fallout, and the Elder Scrolls collection are all huge hits that Microsoft now controls. And we do not suppose it is exhausting to see the following logical step recommended by Spencer’s phrases.

Which franchises are those that not everybody deserves to play? If The Elder Scrolls VI does not come to PlayStation 5 (or PlayStation 6?), for instance, is that as a result of it is a franchise that not everybody deserves to play?

Spencer’s phrases had been meant to make Microsoft seem like the beneficiant good man whereas avoiding—hopefully—upsetting Xbox die-hards. What it actually is, although, is a worth judgment. Worse but, it is one which avid gamers can apply to each sport Microsoft publishes shifting ahead, for no less than so long as Spencer is in control of the Xbox model (if not for much longer).

Or perhaps it is not a worth judgment. Possibly it is a telegraphed swing. Xbox does not wish to put any of its franchises above the others—no less than, not in such a transparent manner as suggesting that a few of them do not need to be performed.

Spencer’s mantra with Xbox video games for the previous few years has been that “when everyone performs, all of us win.” They even have a complete webpage dedicated to the notion.

So if Microsoft does not wish to put down its franchises, and likes the thought of everyone taking part in its video games, what does that imply for the Xbox model? Whereas we do not know what Microsoft’s plans are for the long run, this positive appears to counsel that the Xbox model will ultimately go multi-platform for all of its main titles.

Spencer has, for Xbox followers, been a optimistic determine since he took over and labored exhausting for years to get again the belief that Microsoft misplaced with the ill-conceived Xbox One and its television-centric options. He normally gives up reasonable however even-handed ideas concerning the trade that counsel he is most concerned about seeing as many individuals taking part in as many video games as one might think about.

This is without doubt one of the few instances the place it appears like Spencer stepped in a puddle. Players remember—not if they’ll weaponize your personal phrases in opposition to you afterward. And now as Microsoft makes an attempt a probably transformative shift in the way it views the Xbox platform, we’re left awaiting phrase on which video games are ones that everybody deserves to play… and which aren’t.

Edited by Andrew Hayward