- Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty has discussed the brand’s biggest competition in a recent interview
- He says it “isn’t another console” like the PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch 2
- Rather Xbox is now competing with apps like TikTok and other forms of entertainment
Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty has said that the brand is now competing with platforms like TikTok and other forms of entertainment more than rival console manufacturers.
The comments come from a recent interview with The New York Times in the wake of the announcement of Halo: Campaign Evolved, a game that is set to come to PlayStation 5 in addition to PC, Xbox Series X and Series S when it launches next year.
“We are all seeking to meet people where they are,” Booty said.
“Our biggest competition isn’t another console,” he continued. “We are competing more and more with everything from TikTok to movies.”
This philosophy seems evident in recent Xbox marketing, notably the somewhat controversial ‘This Is an Xbox’ campaign that emphasizes how players can experience Xbox titles on all kinds of devices ranging from Smart TVs to virtual reality headsets and laptops.
Your eyeballs are a commodity
Although this may seem like a strange strategic shift that could alienate the core Xbox audience who value exclusive games, Xbox is one of the many gaming brands that finds itself competing in an increasingly difficult attention economy.
According to recent data from the Circana Player Engagement Tracker, live service titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Roblox continue to dominate on consoles reducing the amount of time players spend in more traditional gaming experiences.
Upcoming releases like Halo: Campaign Evolved have to compete not only with these titans when it comes to the dedicated gaming audience, but also the entertainment provided by devices like mobile phones that occupy the time of more casual players.
Per Statista TikTok has more than two billion users globally, while viewers watched more than 100 billion hours of Netflix content in just the first six months of this year.
By lowering the bar to access Xbox content through multi-platform releases and services like Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft clearly hopes that it will be able to entice that audience.
Will the strategy pay off? We’ll just have to wait and see.
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dash.wood@futurenet.com (Dashiell Wood)
