Microsoft is pursuing a multiplatform direction for Xbox, company leaders told employees during an internal meeting on February 6, according to staff who spoke to Inverse. An official announcement on Thursday, February 15, said four previously console-exclusive games will be released on competing platforms.
Executives detail hardware plans and platform shift
In the internal discussion, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, and Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, outlined plans that include an unspecified “future hardware” for Xbox and a new Call of Duty scheduled for October. Spencer also addressed recent Microsoft job cuts during the meeting.
Bond presented the company’s broader strategy to make Xbox accessible across multiple device types, encapsulated by her remark that “every screen is an Xbox.”
“Every screen is an Xbox” and demonstrations
Employees who spoke anonymously said Bond used the phrase to describe the multiplatform approach and that Microsoft demonstrated the concept by showing Palworld running on tablets, TVs, monitors and handheld devices. The images were used to illustrate how Xbox content could appear across different screens.
Strategy traces back to Spencer’s arrival
The push toward platform-agnostic access is not new. Microsoft has pursued aspects of this strategy since 2014, when Spencer joined the company. In 2020, Jason Ronald, then Vice President of Ecosystem and Gaming Devices at Xbox, stated that the initiative began with Spencer’s arrival and emphasized that Xbox was not trying to force players to upgrade to a single device or lock content to a particular hardware.
Recent announcement on exclusives
On Thursday, February 15, Microsoft issued an official notice that four Xbox-exclusive titles will be released on competing platforms, signaling a concrete step in the company’s multiplatform plan described at the February 6 meeting.
