Microsoft is renewing its PC gaming focus, exploring VR and open to feedback

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...il-Spencer.jpgMicrosoft Studios head Phil Spencer.

Microsoft will soon renew its focus on PC gaming, is looking into virtual reality and continuing to assess concerns over ID@Xbox’s launch parity clause, said Phil Spencer at GDC this morning.Speaking as part of a wide-ranging ‘Fireside chat’ session hosted by Gamasutra editor in chief Kris Graft, the Microsoft Studios boss was also quizzed on a range of other topics, including the Xbox One policy reversals of the last year and the recent departure of Marc Whitten, who left Microsoft for Sonos earlier this week. Spencer said that Whitten’s departure was “for family reasons as well as some professional reasons – he wanted to do something else.” He joked later: “I better get some free speakers.”During a discussion of Xbox One’s storied launch, Spencer argued that the last year hadn’t been as difficult as some might imagine. “The launch actually was great,” he said. “I went through the launch of the 360 so if you think about where our hardware is and where our software is – and frankly game line-up as well – I think it’s a great time to be an Xbox customer. A launch is never without its trials and tribulations but getting there with the number of consoles we had and all of them working was a great accomplishment.”Recalling the reaction to the Xbox One’s reveal event last May, Spencer said that Microsoft’s focus on the console’s wider entertainment capabilities was entirely deliberate – if a little misguided. “We did that knowing that we wanted to focus at E3 100 per cent on the games we were building,” he explained. “In hindsight, in how we rolled out and introduced our product, we could have been more clear and concise about what the soul of the product was. I took a lot of the learnings myself about how consumers heard us, both what we were saying with the policies we had in our minds and how we said it. There were things we had to listen to.”

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