The long-awaited podcast about the future of Xbox was broadcast last night, with Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty weighing in exclusives and Game Pass in a clear and evident attempt to manage an anomalous crisis, born mostly on the basis of simple rumor.
The latter have been partly denied, partly not. Of course, the rumors that spoke of a completely multiplatform Xbox turned out to be largely unfounded and Spencer immediately clarified that only four games will also arrive on PS5 and/or Nintendo Switch.
The CEO of Microsoft Gaming he didn't want to name namesfor the moment, but he revealed that these are two live services (most likely Sea of Thieves and Grounded) and two titles that have already given their all on Xbox (most likely Hi-Fi RUSH and Pentiment).
What Spencer was very clear about is that neither Starfield nor Indiana Jones will come to PS5and in combination with Sarah Bond and Matt Booty confirmed the current setting of the Game Pass (which boasts 34 million subscribers: few?) with the launch of the first party games in the catalog on day one
A bizarre management of the crisis
As we said at the beginning, the podcast broadcast by Xbox seemed like a bizarre attempt at crisis management in which basically Spencer, Bond and Booty did nothing but reiterate things already said over the years, including the fact of decide on a case-by-case basis whether to make a game exclusive or not.
Rather than wait a week, however, the leaders of Microsoft's gaming division they would have done better to deny the most important rumors immediatelythose concerning Starfield and Indiana Jones, so as to stem the psychodrama that has taken place on social media in recent days.
And finally we come to the reason for all this fuss, that is, exactly rumors and their role. That in this case someone wanted to use this tool to cause damage to Xbox seems clear, although as just explained, an immediate denial would have been enough to put out the fire of indignation among the community.
However, we do not agree with the thesis according to which we should simply stop reporting indiscretions. There is certainly a way to deal with a rumour, first of all to avoid letting the message pass that it is something certain; and it is obvious that there is a need for a certain maturity also on the part of those who read and interpret that information.
Even with all the exceptions of the case, completely closing that tap would imply reducing the discussion around video games to a mere re-presentation of the publishers' official press releases: wouldn't that be boring? Let's talk about.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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