News "Official Xbox Podcast" is now live, 4 games coming to other consoles, Activision games on Game Pass, and more

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Xbox has just uploaded their Official Xbox Podcast regarding Xbox and their business going forward in the industry, with the podcast lasting for around 22 minutes, and while the podcast isn't that long, it does cover quite a bunch of things regarding exclusivities, Game Pass and other things.

We'll sum up the points as Phil and his team talks about them:

1. Four game titles will be coming to other consoles. As to what those 4 games are, it's still unknown. Phil mentions how some games, despite them having reached their "completion" status for about a year or so, have build a strong community and are still going strong as of today, and this one of the key reasons to expand the reach of said games. Two of the 4 games are those community-driven games.
   
   
2. Xbox plans on making their future titles to focus on "playing the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want, when everybody plays, we all win", which is part of their strategy for years now, and they want to continue it to expand and grow the games industry.
   
   
3. For AAA titles coming to Xbox's Game Pass, Matt Booty comments on this, mentioning 3 keys aspects:
   1. All of our games will be on the Xbox platform
   2. All of our games will go into Game Pass on day one
   3. Game Pass will only be available on Xbox
      Matt mentions that while they have games being exclusive to Xbox, they want to make them available to more players as well, and also cites two key aspects, which are cross-play and cross-saves.
4. Activision and Blizzard games are coming to Game Pass, and they will start off with Diablo IV on March 28th. They also mention that there's currently around 34 million players on Game Pass.
   
   
5. Phil specified that he wants Xbox to be a platform for creators to reach the most players possible.
   
   
6. Phill talks about how some of their games and franchises have indeed been multi-platform for several years even on mobile devices, and while he understands that this is a success on its own to reach more players, he mentions that at the end of the day and from a business perspective, the Xbox hardware is a key component, and that they're gonna have Xbox players across all kinds of devices.
   
   
7. They want to keep up with the industry by wanting players believe that they will find the best games on platforms they love, they want people who invest their careers to work there (Xbox), to feel it's a place where they can be successful. Phil also cites two ways of how to go forward in the on-going industry business, one which is to cater to the already existing player base to monetize from them, or find new ways to expand and reach new players so they are added to the current player base.
   
   
8. Matt talks about communities for highly popular franchises, like Call of Duty and Minecraft, and mentions two key factors when it comes to established communities and what devices they choose to play in, which is what platform do the player's friend play at, and what platform have the players built their library of games. Sarah Bond mentions specifically Palworld by Pocket Pair as one title that achieved outsized success, with it being the largest third party Game Pass release launch ever, by giving the creators options on how they can launch their games, with multiple options ranging from PC/Steam, consoles, retail, subscription, free-to-play, game preview, etc.
   
   
9. Sarah also mentions that while Xbox is their flagship hardware, that the options they give to creators and developers allows them to make their game run great on Xbox, but additionally, and thanks to their investments on recent years, that their game will be able to be accessed through any "screen" (possibly referring to streaming/cloud). She also mentions some "exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're gonna share this holiday season", so perhaps a new revision or something else of the sorts for Xbox might be coming by the end of the year (through that's merely speculation). They also have their own roadmap in regards for the next generation.
   
   
10. Phil Spencer goes into some talk in regards to game libraries and their preservation, as well as compatibility between older titles and more modern hardware, and says that he plans to "respect" that investment that people make on Xbox going forward, saying that it's part of Xbox's foundation to do so and to try to keep things like cloud saves and other services for as long as they can.
    
    
11. To wrap up, Sarah Bond mentions that Xbox is a platform where some of the biggest games in the world are always gonna be in, and alongside that, they have Game Pass, which will feature new game releases on day one, and additional options like player-first features, cross-play, cross-save, cross-progression, backwards compatibility, and their cloud gaming investments lets Xbox players play from anywhere they desire.

And that's a wrap, Matt mentions at the end that they have around 10 major releases coming up in 2024, with some of those being Hellblade 2 and the Diablo Expansion, Indiana Jones, Avowed, Ara, and others.