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The future of console gaming lies in the digital world, Microsoft’s chief marketing and strategy officer Yusuf Mehdi.
Speaking to Arstechnica, Mehdi discussed the company’s controversial stance on internet connection requirements and used games, and said the company needed to educate consumers to make sure they understood what Microsoft was doing and get them ready for change.
He said the firm was making big changes in trying to move the console industry forward, but that consumers were sometimes reticent to try something new.
"This is a big change, consumers don’t always love change, and there’s a lot of education we have to provide to make sure that people understand,” said Mehdi.
He added: "We’re trying to do something pretty big in terms of moving the industry forward for console gaming into the digital world. We believe the digital world is the future, and we believe digital is better."
Mehdi went on to say that Microsoft was attempting to create a balance across all sides of the business, from consumers to publishers to retailers, and to do this tradeoffs needed to be made.
He said that although he believed consumers should come first, it was important for publishers to generate money from their games, and also for retailers to make a profit.
"Within that, we’ve tried to optimise, and I think we’ve found a great balance across all of those dimensions," said Mehdi.
"But there are tradeoffs. We do want to support everyone in that system, beginning with the consumer. But we want publishers to get paid for the great IP they work on. We want retailers to be able to drive and sell our products and make a profit. So we are trying to balance across all those."
