Xbox’s Phil Spencer Plans To Drive More Players For Starfield And Even Call Of Duty/World Of Warcraft To Be Most-Played Titled In New Interview

In the turn of the new generation, we witnessed some of Microsoft’s ongoing releases continue to evolve into thriving experiences as tens of millions of players log-in to these first-party titles. Over the course of the game’s steady reworking, Sea of Thieves went from hitting the seas bare with content to obtaining more than 25 million players since its 2018 launch. Additionally, other Xbox Game Studios titles face similar milestones.

Over the past month, we learned that games such as Forza Horizon 5 has entertained its festival attendees with more than 15 million playing. Similarly, Halo Infinite also shared that its first official month welcomed more than 20 million players. Additionally, Minecraft Dungeons celebrated its milestone for 15 million more recently. Obsidian Entertainment also revealed that Grounded exceeded 10 million players ahead of its full release coming up.

When speaking to Axios Gaming, Xbox lead Phil Spencer elaborates that he anticipates to continue delivering a steady player base to first-party titles, namely Starfield come later this fall. He anticipated to make that Bethesda’s “most-played” release, he shares.

Spencer adds, “But that will be success for me for the individual games: Can we really make these games–can we allow them to reach more players than they’ve ever seen before? And I say that because I believe in the social impact of interactive entertainment.” Moreover, Spencer’s plans also carries over to further improving the player count on its upcoming acquisition of Activision Blizzard for IPs like Call of Duty & World of Warcraft.

“Well, that specific question of, ‘Hey, there’s only one place that I want to play games. And if that game doesn’t end up on the one place that I want to play that has its own business requirements for me as a creator…those people can go play those games. They’re just going to say, I’m choosing not to, because it’s not on the one device that has its specific [trails off]. So I get that.”

Further regarding bolstering Call of Duty for more players will certainly be interesting to see how Microsoft might go ahead with the initiative. Already, the series remains one of the most popular IPs in the industry. While it falls short last decade by Grand Theft Auto V, nearly a dozen titles from Activision sat in the top 20 most sold games. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you interested in how Microsoft will achieve to bring more players to its games?