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Xbox boss Phil Spencer: More TV and film gaming tie-ins likely in the future

The head of Xbox has told Newsbeat more game franchises are likely to cross over into film and television in the future.

Phil Spencer was speaking at Gamescom in Cologne, where the company announced its forthcoming exclusives including time-bending third person shooter Quantum Break.

It's being made by the developers behind Max Payne and will include a live action TV show following the game's plot.

Famous faces like X-Men star Shawn Ashmore and Aiden Gillen from Game of Thrones are involved with the project and according to Phil Spencer there could be more tie-ins like this on the way on Xbox.

Image captionAiden Gillen, who plays Petyr Baelish in Game of Thrones, appears in Quantum Break

 

"There are certain franchises that we have that lend themselves to video, TV and even potentially movies… so I do think you'll see more."

With Microsoft's console trying to gain ground on its main rivals PlayStation, European gamers have become a key target for the company.

Phil Spencer said that the UK is an important part of that strategy, both for gamers and developers.

"Outside the US we have more of our team in the UK than in any other place.

"We have a studio up in the Midlands, we have a studio in downtown London and Guildford.

"We build quite a few games in that market and going back (it is) probably rivalling Japan in some ways," he said.

"It's an area that has just such a rich history in building games and having creative talent on the ground helping us craft what our product is is very important."

At the Gamescom press conference (and at E3 earlier this year) Xbox made a big effort to promote its exclusive games - the ones only available on the Xbox - Like Halo 5, Scalebound and Crackdown.

Phil Spencer told Newsbeat: "We know that people choose the console on what games are exclusively available there.

"When we do our research it's the thing that pops to the top.

"I want to make sure that Xbox fans have games that they want to play and that they know are coming to their console."

He acknowledged Sony's success after the company's PlayStation 4 outsold the Xbox One after both consoles launched in 2013.

I really focus on us growing our Xbox user base. My job is to make it grow year after year. That's what it's all about
Phil Spencer
Head of Xbox

"Sony has had great success with the PlayStation and they've done it... over decades.

We asked Phil if their new approach to exclusive games for Xbox would help close the gap.

"I really focus on us growing our Xbox user base," he said. "My job is to make it grow year after year. That's what it's all about."

Keeping up our theme of asking the most powerful men in gaming (read our interview with PlayStation's Andy House) what their secret gaming guilty pleasures is. We asked Phil to find out and his answer caught us by surprise.

"It's Solitaire," he said.

"I sit sometimes, not in the most exciting meetings [playing solitaire], I'm having a really good time with it.

"I don't necessarily wear the solitaire T-shirt - but maybe should?"



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Hey everyone, I've been lurking these forums for a while and now decided to hop aboard. I've been gaming with xbox since the original and it seems like rest of the year is going to be the best ever gaming-wise. Allready got GoW: UE pre-installed and there's Fallout 4 coming, two of my favourite franchises ever! And let's not forget that finnish legend Jari Litmanen will be added to Fifa16 FUT :) Great times to be had!



KiigelHeart said:
Hey everyone, I've been lurking these forums for a while and now decided to hop aboard. I've been gaming with xbox since the original and it seems like rest of the year is going to be the best ever gaming-wise. Allready got GoW: UE pre-installed and there's Fallout 4 coming, two of my favourite franchises ever! And let's not forget that finnish legend Jari Litmanen will be added to Fifa16 FUT :) Great times to be had!

Welcome KiglelHeart!  



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

Wow, Forza Horizon Fast and Furious has the easiest achievements ever. I got almost all the achievements in less than 2 hours! Everyone should play it if they want to boost their GS.



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

Big news for Ori and the Blind Forest. Thomas Mahler from Moon Studios reveals an expansion coming to Windows 10 & Xbox One later this year



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shikamaru317 said:

 Xbox Japan to hold Xbox One events in Tokyo and Osaka

Maybe we'll see ReCore there



crissindahouse said:

Big news for Ori and the Blind Forest. Thomas Mahler from Moon Studios reveals an expansion coming to Windows 10 & Xbox One later this year


:)



You know between Halo Wars, Halo 5's huge campaign and the amazing reception Crackdown is getting, its been a pretty great week for Xbox!

Crackdown is going to be a huge test case. There will be ridicule if the server-side multiplayer doesn't work, and arguably the most epic denial we've ever seen on these forums if it does. Imagine if, 3 years into the generation, MS was right about cloud-based computing giving the X1 a leg up.



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

MS needs to make an Exclusive MMO for Xbox One that uses cloud computing that way they can get around the Always online that seems to bother a lot of people. Also I'm happy to see Crackdown getting big praise.



starcraft said:
You know between Halo Wars, Halo 5's huge campaign and the amazing reception Crackdown is getting, its been a pretty great week for Xbox!

Crackdown is going to be a huge test case. There will be ridicule if the server-side multiplayer doesn't work, and arguably the most epic denial we've ever seen on these forums if it does. Imagine if, 3 years into the generation, MS was right about cloud-based computing giving the X1 a leg up.

But it doesn't count if it only works online because what if we want to play in the wood?

Even if it won't work with Crackdown because of the early state of this technology I'm sure it will work very well in some more years and we will probably see games like Battlefield going insane with it. We will probably see it for unbelievable real time weather calculations and stuff like that in games.