In a new interview on the Same Brain videocast, Phil Spencer admitted that it had been way too long since the last time the Xbox had a major AAA release, but they do have games coming up next year.

In terms of new releases, the most recent major game announcement that Microsoft had was their new Age of Empires releases on Xbox, namely, Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires 4 for Xbox Series X and S. However, their last release of something like a new Forza or Halo, games that are known to drive sales of the console, have been far too long.

Here’s what Phil had to say about the situation:

“One thing we’ve definitely heard loud and clear is it’s been too long since we’ve shipped what people would say is a big first-party game. We can have our excuses with Covid and other things, but in the end I know people invest in our platform and they want to have great games.

We’re excited about 2023 and we’ve talked about games that are coming. Those games are tracking well [and] we’re out of what Covid did to the production schedule.

And as an industry we have fewer games this holiday than we’ve had in a while, when you just think about the launches. Call of Duty is coming, God of War is coming – which is great – Nintendo’s had a good year. But in general I would say we’ve been a little light.

But I look at 2023 and there’s a great line-up of games coming that I’m excited about. Getting our first real Xbox first-party games out of Bethesda, having them ship with Redfall and Starfield, will be a lot of fun.”

So as future AAA Xbox games come and go, Phil Spencer has promised us Redfall and Starfield. For fans who may have forgotten or simply unfamiliar with them, Starfield is Bethesda’s next major AAA, a space exploration game in the same vein as No Man’s Sky, but made by the developers that made The Elder Scrolls and Fallout.

On the other hand, Redfall is an Arkane Studios project under Bethesda. Redfall is a science fiction and horror themed first person shooter, set in an open world. In the aftermath of a failed scientific experiment, a legion of vampires takes over and you, playing solo or in co-op, take on these bloodsucking invaders.

So the future seems bright for Xbox players, but this seems to have been a persistent problem for Team Xbox under Phil Spencer’s watch. For fans who may not remember, the Xbox One also had trouble maintaining a slate of first party games to keep gamers interested. I had name dropped Forza and Halo earlier, as these had proven themselves to be reliable cash cows for the company in that generation. Original games like Sunset Overdrive, technical showcases like Rise: Son of Rome, and reboots like Crackdown 3 and Killer Instinct proved to not be particularly successful.

With all that said, perhaps this is arguably more of an annoyance than a serious issue for Xbox owners. There hasn’t been a time before when the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms had so much parity. Both PlayStation and Xbox have published their best first party games to PC themselves. Video game exclusivity isn’t really as big a factor when it comes to buying video games and game hardware.

Still, the bigger picture here is Microsoft’s investment in so many game studio acquisitions still hasn’t paid off, for them or their fans. Hopefully, Bethesda proves their worth when their big name AAAs come out next year.

Source: VideoGamesChronicle