According to Phil Spencer of Xbox, "it's been too long" since the company had last put out a first-party blockbuster video game. While the console giant certainly has a multitude of huge projects underway, such as its attempt at acquiring Activision Blizzard, its first-party video game releases haven't been all that noteworthy as of late, which has been a major source of disappointment for the fans.

While Xbox has been successfully trading blows with PlayStation over the course of the current console generation in most areas that matter, Sony's first-party studios have been more productive in general, with releases such as Gran Turismo 7, Demon's Souls, and the upcoming God of War Ragnarok taking most of the limelight. Spencer claims that this is bound to change in relatively short order.

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In his recent interview on the Same Brain podcast hosted by Justine and Jenna Ezarik, Phil Spencer went on record saying that "there's a great line-up of games coming" in 2023, promising that it would be a far stronger year for Xbox than 2022 has ended up being. Though Spencer is keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation if the Activision Blizzard acquisition passes through, many other Xbox first-party productions won't get the same treatment, such as Bethesda's long-awaited Starfield and Arkane Studios' Redfall.

Spencer also had words of praise to share about Sony's new God of War game, as well as Nintendo's own series of successes over the past couple of years. In context, he said, Xbox's own output had been "a little light." This sort of positive commentary sits in stark contrast to some of Spencer's other recent comments. As a prime example, the Xbox CEO recently criticized Metaverse, saying that it's a shoddily-built video game that he wouldn't want to spend much time in.

While it may appear surprising that the CEO of Xbox would admit that one of the company's shortcomings, the numbers don't lie. Namely, Xbox Game Pass missed its subscriber goal for the second year in a row, and the fact that the company isn't putting out enough exciting first-party offerings is bound to be a factor in this equation. If Spencer's claims are true, however, this should change for the better in relatively short order, giving fans of Xbox way more reason to stay subscribed to the company's bespoke gaming service.

Content isn't the only thing that's being boosted in the near (and far) future with Xbox. Xbox Insiders are testing a new Dashboard UI right now, and it's supposed to provide a substantially improved core user experience both while playing games and while browsing the store or the user's own local content library.

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