Xbox: the growth of the sector is at a standstill, the number of console players has not grown for years

Phil Spencerthe head of Microsoft's gaming division and the world's leading figurehead Xboxhad the opportunity to reiterate an important concept regarding the state of the video game industry, in particular the more traditional sector: the number of players is stagnant. He did so during an interview granted to journalist Stephen Totilo, in which he also spoke about the arrival of Call of Duty on Game Pass and other topics.

As reported by Totilo, the estimates from the analysis company Newzoo state that in 2023 the video game industry produced only 0.6% more revenues than in 2022.

“I don't think we're doing a good job of finding new players,” said Spencer, who then explained: “Let's take consoles as an example: we have 200 million households globally playing consoles. That's a number that hasn't changed in the last five, six years.”

Unsustainable stalemate

For Spencer, therefore, the problem is systemic. If those operating in the sector do not make an effort to find new players, the situation will only get worse. But the steps taken by the industry in the last period all go in the opposite direction, as admitted by himself: “We have raised the price of the games (in reference to the €80 price of the triple A games of the PS5 – Xbox Series ), we've been through COVID. We've found ways to get more money out of individual players. But I think at some point you can't go any further and, frankly, you might end up using some manipulative techniques that I'm not really a fan of .”

Spencer refers to all those ways of monetizationvery widespread in the mobile sector, but not only, based on the psychological exploitation of people, which many do not even realize they are suffering.

For Spencer the solution is therefore to find new customers through a different way of distributing the games, so as to reach those who cannot access them today. In short, the idea is always to bring Xbox up every screeninstead of closing themselves in like a hedgehog in their own ecosystem.