Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer hints at Xbox achievement improvements and more

In late October, two weeks after Microsoft finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company made some shuffles in its executive ranks. One of them was to give longtime Xbox head Phil Spencer a new title: CEO of Microsoft Gaming.

The new title gives Spencer all the power at Microsoft to improve and expand its gaming efforts; Not only with its Xbox consoles but also with PC gaming, and as previously reported, there is a new effort to launch a third-party mobile game store in the future.

in New interview with Windows Central“Spencer made some comments about the company’s potential future gaming plans. One thing that came up was the company’s cloud gaming efforts. Spencer originally stated that it was planned as a way for Microsoft to enter the mobile gaming space, but in the US, it was turned Xbox Game Pass is a way for Xbox gamers to try out games on the cloud before purchasing or downloading them.

Spencer stated that these uses were not anticipated at Microsoft and this helped the company think about what else could be done with cloud gaming. Then he added:

There’s a roadmap for these upcoming things too. There’s a hardware roadmap, there’s a service roadmap, and there’s probably even a roadmap for improving Xbox achievements, which I know is something you and many others care about.

We need to make sure we show the roadmap to our customers to keep them motivated. We know our customers want to know that as Xbox continues to grow, we still have a commitment to them. We want our core Xbox customers to feel respected.

Spencer also talked about efforts to help improve gaming on any device, thanks in part to the rise of gaming laptops. He said:

I think a lot about product entitlement, and we have Xbox Play Anywhere. Xbox Play Anywhere has been a long-term part of our strategy, although I don’t think we’ve made as much progress as we could have over the years. But as I see these laptops coming, I think there will be things like play anywhere, being able to keep my library of games with me and allowing me to play them on different devices, including cloud streaming at some point. We’re looking at the ability to let you stream the games you want to own.

Additionally, Spencer mentioned that there is a “roadmap for the Xbox Family Plan” even though the company closed the preview of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Friends and Family plan in beta launch markets on August 15.

Spencer also made some vague comments about the possibility of bringing back some game franchises from Blizzard’s library of titles, saying:

I’m not one to try to lead people on, it may not happen on the schedule people like, but usually when I annoy them, there’s something.

So, Spencer shot down some online speculation this week, prompted by comments from Xbox CTO Tim Stewart, about Microsoft’s desire to add Xbox Game Pass to Sony and Nintendo consoles. Spinner said that “…we don’t have any plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo. It’s not in our plans.”