Phil Spencer knows it's "been too long" since Xbox shipped a big first-party game

Xbox boss Phil Spencer echoed the thoughts of many fans by acknowledging that "it's been too long since we've shipped a big first-party game."

Speaking with the Same Brain podcast, Spencer said, "One thing we've definitely heard loud and clear is it's been too long since we've shipped what people would say is a big first-party game. We can have our excuses on COVID and other things, but in the end I know people invest in our platform and they want to have great games. We're excited about 2023."

Spencer was quick to note that the pandemic's lingering effects have contributed to a thinner holiday lineup for the games industry as a whole. "Call of Duty's coming, God of War's coming which is great, Nintendo's had a good year, but I'd say in general we've been a little light," he said. "But I look at 2023 and there's a great lineup of games coming that I'm excited about," he added, leaning on the likes of Redfall and Starfield as tentpole releases for Xbox.  

In the same interview, Spencer stressed that Xbox is also focusing on other platforms besides its actual consoles, highlighting efforts to improve the Xbox PC app and expand its cloud offerings. Mobile games are also increasingly important to the company, Spencer said, with Microsoft "spending more time thinking about mobile and what do we mean for mobile players, because we don't really mean anything for mobile players right now." 

Microsoft has cited headway in the mobile market as a key motivator in its still-pending $70 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, which also covers the massive mobile game company King. The deal was most recently approved by Brazil, but the UK government in particular has repeatedly raised anti-competitive concerns.

Want to know what else we can look forward to from Xbox in the near future? Take a look at our upcoming Xbox Series X games list.