A couple of months back on February 15th, XBOX released an Official XBOX Podcast regarding Updates on the XBOX Business. When this was announced there were rumors swirling that XBOX was going to put multiple titles out on other systems and that maybe XBOX was even going to go third party! Of course while there were some announcements of select titles going multiplatform, the rumors mill may have started swirling a bit too hard in regard to going third party.

All this recent talk and the peculiar position that Microsoft finds themselves in with the current state of XBOX got me thinking, what would I do If I Was President…Of XBOX.

The most obvious thing with XBOX, Gamepass is the star of the show. I would continue putting everything on Gamepass day one, this is the biggest, strongest selling point that we have going as a company. This certainly is a risk, but extremely bold move that we know our competitors can’t and won’t match. By doing that we are likely to greatly hurt our software sales potential, but that is where these next crucial steps have to come in. First we will strive to release every first party title day and date on PC as well, and while Gamepass has day one for all games, Gamepass for PC won’t have the same luxury. With Gamepass for PC, there will be a three to six months delay on titles landing there from first party, this will again push that the best value for any title from our vast first party studios is on a proper XBOX console. The only exception would be the Call Of Duty series, they’ll release as regular fully priced titles for all consoles day one and not be on Gamepass. Second major software update would be, yes we are going to publish on Sony and Nintendo consoles, almost every title we release as first party will come to one or both of their consoles after a full year exclusive on XBOX and Gamepass. Obviously this would only be hampered by the limitations of the Nintendo Switch, and games that wouldn’t meet the quality standards would only see their way to PlayStation consoles.

And now that we have established what our business plan is for releasing software, what can we do to ensure we have a much improved and more diverse pipeline of software releasing…

With all the various acquisitions Microsoft has made over the years we own a strong stable of studios and along with them a large assortment of highly diverse properties. Along with utilizing the diversity of such strong portfolio, we will emphasize developing a stronger and more consistent channel to actively listen to what the community wants. Ensuring we are giving the fans the content from Halo and Gears of War that they want, and bringing back titles in the Conker’s and Banjo Kazooie franchises. We will also use a strategy that has been working well for PlayStation and working towards greater integration across the various Microsoft studios to help work towards getting long awaited titles like Perfect Dark to release. Another key with our software is knowing that not every title released needs to be a massive AAA scale game, make arcade style Battle Toads releases similar to the recent TMNT games we’ve seen in recent years, and develop other smaller scale first party games with our various IP. Another goal would be to annualize Forza releasing a Motorosport and Horizon title alternately, with both games having a two year plan upon release. And while we feel great about our owned first party studios, we can’t do it all alone.

We will take chances on partnering with indie devs to get their titles either on XBOX exclusively or even better on Gamepass. And despite having a strong stable of studios we will not rest, we will continue to be aggressive in acquiring studios and partner with third parties to ensure some timed exclusivity on releases. Even going to a company like Embracer Group, or formerly known as Embracer Group now, and trying to acquire some of the IP they have long held and not utilized, going after critically acclaimed shooters Timesplitters and/or Red Faction or from a very different genre, Soul Reaver, to revive the franchises by one of our first party studios. Or going after plenty of the lesser known IP they hold, a franchise like Maneater could have some great potential with our owned studios as well, again focusing on pushing a diverse library for our players.

The last major thing I would push as President of XBOX, consistently release special edition consoles and controllers. We will push for many of our first part titles to come out with a special edition console, this has been done throughout the last few console generations and is a great way to push console sales among your most loyal fans. At least one first party title yearly will get a unique special edition console and controller, which can be bought separately, as part of its release promotion. We would also push for third party partnerships, we’ve seen Spongebob, TMNT, and Bluey consoles released, and would love to see these continue on a more consistent basis even.

While these past few years have not gone as well as hope or expected, making these changes will help lead XBOX in the years to come. Gamepass on an XBOX console needs to be the place gamers want to be, because we will have the biggest and most diverse catalogue of games. This will come from our renewed aggression in acquiring studios and dormant IP from other studios, giving a helping hand to indie devs to ensure they can get their titles released, and continuing to partner with third party studios to get exclusivity that makes sense and benefits both companies. And we will push even further to get Microsoft owned IP on other consoles, we will push it first on our consoles and Gamepass, then to PC, then to PlayStation and/or Switch when possible. An XBOX with Gamepass will be the best value in gaming, but for those who don’t want to make that choice, we want access to our great titles across as many platforms as possible. We see a bright future here at XBOX and we hope that you will come with us on this journey.

Comment here, follow @Gamewrote on Twitter and Instagram to interact more, and lastly please share the content if you enjoyed reading it yourself.