With only about a year left until Microsoft will release its next-gen platform known as Xbox Scarlett, Phil Spencer, the Head of Xbox, has started to talk more about how the company plans to compete with Sony and the impending launch of the PS5.

In a new conversation with The Verge, Spencer talked about Scarlett and how vital he believes it is for Xbox to get off on the right foot this time around. “I would say a learning from the Xbox One generation is we will not be out of position on power or price,” Spencer said in reference to Scarlett. “If you remember the beginning of this generation we were a hundred dollars more expensive and yes, we were less powerful. And we started Project Scarlett with this leadership team in place with a goal of having market success.”

Without mentioning Sony or the PS5 directly, Spencer also talked more about how Xbox plans to compete with the other major console manufacturer in the industry through protocols that Microsoft has already put in place in this Xbox One generation. “We’re all-in on Project Scarlett and I want to compete, and I want to compete in the right ways which is why we’re focused on cross-play and backward compatibility,” Spencer explained.

It’s interesting to hear Spencer talk so adamantly about how he and the team at Xbox want to now compete more with the competition through Scarlett. In recent years, Microsoft has shied away from directly comparing itself to others in the industry and instead has continued to work on its own ecosystem. As Spencer points out, initiatives such as cross-play, backward compatibility, and streaming tech like Project xCloud have been major focuses for the team at Xbox. With Scarlett, it seems as though Spencer and the team are ready to rally all of those ideas and features around the company’s new platform more so than ever before.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Xbox Scarlett, but we’ll likely learn more in the coming months. Spencer is still being a bit dodgy about certain aspects of the platform, such as whether or not Scarlett will be released as multiple models, as some previous rumors have indicated. “We will talk about the SKU lineup and how it works. I think the root principle of we don’t want to confuse people, we share that,” Spencer stated.

Regardless of what Xbox has in store for Scarlett, it seems as though the platform is going to be a major stepping stone for what Microsoft wants to do in the gaming space moving forward.



Posted: Nov 17, 2019 12:11 pm
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://www.dualshockers.com/xbox-scarlett-phil-spencer-compete-with-ps5-sony/