Xbox Leader Calls for Unity in Gaming
Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phill Spencer, is calling for unity in the gaming world today. Spencer published a letter on the Microsoft blog, listing some of the ways Microsoft is working to unify the gaming community and how it — along with others — can do better at bringing everyone together. Just last week, Microsoft announced its gaming partnership with Sony, and that could be the beginning of more to come as the industry works towards unifying the community.
“Gaming is for everyone”, Spencer stated, asking people to rethink who gamers actually are. “If you imagine gamers as predominantly men and specifically teen boys, think again. We are a 2.6 billion-person strong community of parents playing with our kids, adventurers exploring worlds together, teachers making math wondrous, grandmothers learning about their grandchildren through play, and soldiers connecting with their folks back home. Most gamers today are adults; nearly half are women”, he wrote.
Spencer then went on to talk about how gaming needs to be safe and protect everyone. “By uniting as an industry, we can thoughtfully and deliberately continue building a safe and inclusive gaming environment for everyone. Microsoft, Team Xbox, and I are personally committing to this,” Spencer wrote.
Spencer talks about how the company’s Xbox Safety Team is constantly growing to take action against any abuse and misuse on its gaming platform. He also said that the company is working on new tools for moderators that will provide them with improved moderation controls by the end of the year on Xbox Live. Spencer emphasised how Microsoft is also working with industry leaders to protect gamers, especially in areas like content moderation and user research, sharing insights and best practices in safety, security and privacy with the industry.
And lastly, Spencer noted how the new game streaming services will make gaming available to more people worldwide, calling for the industry to come together for everyone’s safety. “The gaming community continues to grow rapidly, and the imminent roll-out of new game services such as Apple Arcade, Google Stadia and Microsoft’s Project xCloud, will make gaming available to even more people worldwide. Our industry must now answer the fierce urgency to play with our fierce urgency for safety,” he wrote.
“We invite everyone who plays games, and industry partners, to join us in following these principles to help unify the world and do our part: make gaming accessible for everyone and protect gamers, one and all,” Spencer said.