In a new interview with GamesRadar, Matt Booty, the Head of Xbox Games Studios talked about the upcoming launch of the next generation of consoles and their plan for Project Scarlett to succeed. One of the more interesting things that he discusses is the plan for their first-party studios. Over the past two years, Xbox has made several additions to its first-party studios. Now, with Project Scarlett, Xbox is looking to make up for the lack of first-party games with the Xbox One.
With 15 first-party studios, Matt Booty says “we feel really good heading into 2020. We’ve got a goal of being able to deliver a game, roughly, every three to four months. We have a little bit of work to do to get there. It’ll be lumpy, but we’re closer than we were. And so we feel really good going into 2020 – and the run-up to Project Scarlett – with our content line-up.” Talking about making more game announcements by the end of the year with Project Scarlett set to launch in Holiday 2020, Matt Booty said “I think we want people to feel comfortable investing in Xbox. And whether that means that this holiday, you’re going to buy an Xbox One S or next fall you’re going to buy a Scarlett – you’re going to feel comfortable either way. And that content library that you invest in is going forward [with you] so that you don’t have to feel like you’re making a choice between generations, right? I think that’s really important to us.
While Xbox has been focusing on adding to their first-party studios, it doesn’t mean that third-party games aren’t being thought about. Matt Booty said, “I think we’ve certainly felt more confident and proud to be able to talk first-party lately. However, I think it’s super important to remember that content comes under Xbox through three avenues. So there is Xbox Game Studios; that’s our first-party. There’s our third party, and we have got a tremendous volume of content coming in through third-party partnerships – and that includes things like we announced at X019, with series like Yakuza, Kingdom Hearts, and Final Fantasy coming to Xbox. And then there’s this third avenue of content, which comes in through ID@Xbox.”
Booty concludes with “I don’t think there’s been a shift… no one, at least in Redmond, would say: ‘Oh, we’ve shifted from third-party over to first-party.’ Sarah Bond, who leads our third-party team, is out there day in and day out working with our third-party partners. If you were to sit in a meeting back at Redmond, I think you would hear an equal amount of talk about first-party, third-party, and ID@Xbox. We take that altogether as our content stream. I think it’s just that, lately, we felt a little more proud about talking about what we’ve got going on with first-party.”