5 years ago. Now he's a director in MS, they're releasing games on Steam, PC and giving away all 1st party content for $7.99. Your being disingenuous if you think Phil is in the same place as 5 years ago.
Only out of necessity though. Not out of choice.
Selling more hardware means you sell more software and subscription plans. That's why Sony is making a killing on software and subscription plans. Microsoft isn't selling anywhere near as much hardware, hence this shift to selling subscription plans on PC, the rumours of selling Game Pass on Switch, and the new rule for all first party games to support Xbox One as well as Scarlett. The messaging on the latter is all over the place, especially noticeable in
this Eurogamer interview.
On the topic of what Scarlett opens up for new ground in game development that couldn't be done before:
"What I'd like to share a little more relevant to my world on the game studios side, is what [Scarlett] will open up in terms of game design. Going all the way back to the early 2000s with streaming, what you do when things are streaming, even some ways Unreal Engine is architected to allow for certain things - going into a room through a little hallway - people have been designing games around load times for so long.
To be able to have the power, the SSD to unlock a new approach to game design... We're probably sitting on a pivot point in game design, when you add up the new console's speed and performance, what cloud streaming will offer up when all the instances of a multiplayer game are running in one location, what it means to be running a game in a data centre... all that in combination with some of the hardware stuff could be as big a transition as when we went from 2D to 3D."
And:
"I don't want to steal any of Bonnie [Ross]'s thunder on Halo Infinite but I think you saw a little bit of it during the video we showed today. But start to think about things like bringing a bigger density of life to a world. We know the kind of game Halo is, the kind of detail in there. Think about bringing more density and variety to the light inside its world. Think about not having to create artificial design things to mask some of the limitations of the hardware and just bring things off of the SSD as fast as they're needed on screen."
Immediately followed by talking about all Scarlett games also being playable on Xbox One, so no one is left behind:
"We're not talking today about features in Halo Infinite but what I can share is our first-party studios have direct access to the team working on Project Scarlett, and the Halo team gets first access to what's running on the hardware. So they are in prime position to take advantage of the things Scarlett will offer, but as you pointed out we also want to make sure people who own an Xbox One get a game which runs well up and down the Xbox family. But it plays best on Scarlett."
"The game needs to be smart enough to take advantage of what's there in the best possible way, but also set itself up to run on the hardware which doesn't have those capabilities. The fact we have direct access literally across the soccer field to the Windows team working on DirectX and all the gaming features on Windows means we have experience navigating up and down the hardware continuum. And a little bit of that is going to be coming to our world on console, but again our lens on this is always from the player's point of view. How do we make sure our game is opened up to as many people as possible, and invested into our console family?"
"Our first-party teams are highly-empowered to make the games they want, but also to target the right platforms. [...] Those studios who have games like Halo, Gears of War, the next Forza, they have great access to the people working on Scarlett. And like you said, it'll be available to everyone but plays best on Scarlett."
These are two very different directions. They are not truly compatible. You can't hype up the benefits of faster RAM and SSDs to finally allow devs to design worlds without loading doors/corridors, but then also say that all of their next gen games are being designed to run on current gen hardware but "play best on Scarlett".
Sadly, that seems to be specifically because they know they can't match Sony in terms of hardware units being sold, and so they're reluctant to risk losing their current Xbox One install base to the PS5 if they pursue a true console generation transition (just like so many 360 players switched to PS4 this gen). Hence, sacrificing game dev advancement by ensuring all first party games are designed with current gen hardware in mind, but "playing best" on Scarlett, just to ensure as large as an install base as possible for the sale of software and subscription plans.
It's a pretty depressing new direction for Spencer to pursue, if you value the benefits a new console generation typically affords first party games to pursue. I'm sure it's great news if you can't afford to buy into a new console gen just yet though and you're an existing Xbox One owner.
