At this year's
Xbox E3 Conference, every first-party Microsoft game—including Forza
Horizon 3, Gears of War 4, and Scalebound—was announced for Windows 10
as well as Xbox One. Microsoft's plan for Windows 10 and the Xbox brand
also involves making digital purchases apply to both Windows 10 and
Xbox, so there's no buying a game twice, and allowing for cross-play
between platforms. It seems we're looking at future of nearly identical
Microsoft libraries for both PC and Xbox.
Still,
we wondered if Microsoft might keep certain special franchises Xbox
exclusive as a weapon in its battle with Sony for the console market.
According to Xbox head Phil Spencer, however, that's not the case.
Speaking to PC Gamer yesterday, Spencer said he's "not about putting
content only on console to manipulate Windows gamers to go buy an
Xbox."
"The reason somebody wants to go
buy an Xbox—or I’ll just say a game console, yes I’d love if they bought
an Xbox—is they want to sit 10 feet from their television screen with a
controller in their lap looking at a television playing a videogame,"
said Spencer. "It’s a different experience from playing on PC. I’m not
saying it’s better or worse, it’s just different. Halo 5 absolutely
could be played on a PC. There’s nothing about that gameplay mechanic
that doesn’t work."
So why no Halo 5 on
PC? Spencer says that Microsoft and 343 Industries are looking to the
future. "Honestly the answer with Halo 5 is, I can go take last year’s
game, rework it to go on PC, or I can have 343 look forward in what
they’re going to go do," said Spencer. "You could say I’m cheating a
little bit by doing a half thing with putting Forge on PC, because we
kind of have the tools working on PC to see what happens, but this is
what we did with Forza, with Apex. I said, 'This isn’t a full Forza
game. Going forward, we’re going to bring our Forza games to PC
complete.'"
Replace 'Forza' with 'Halo'
and you have your answer. It sounds pretty clear that nearly every
first-party Microsoft game going forward will release on Windows 10, at
least where it makes sense, which it does for Halo. As further
confirmation, when asked if there would be any ideological reason
Microsoft might not release the next Halo on PC, Spencer gave us a firm
"Not at all."
We also spoke with Spencer
about the troubles recent Windows 10 launches have faced—Gears of War
Ultimate Edition and Quantum Break being the prime examples—and how
Microsoft plans to get better at shipping PC games, as well as the
closure of Lionhead.