Phil Spencer on why Xbox One catching up with PS4's sales isn't his priority

Sony's PS4 continues to sell like hot cakes having recently passed the 25 million mark worldwide compared to Xbox One's 13 million, but Microsoft's Xbox division boss Phil Spencer isn't concerned with playing catch-up. Instead he's focusing on strengthening Xbox's position in the market.

"Honestly, I think it's about growing Xbox. Sony's had great success with PlayStation, they've earned that success over multiple decades of building a great product. Kudos to them for their market position," he said in an interview with Eurogamer.

"All I can do is focus on Xbox, and I love that. I love our fans and the partners we have. We're growing Xbox year on year, we're bigger than we were this time in the 360 generation, so generation over generation we're in a better spot, year over year we're in a better spot. We're seeing more people online, more games being sold, more consoles being sold. So generally I feel good about the trajectory we're on."

Microsoft has had a good year so far which looks set to finish strong with a line-up of exclusives far beyond that of what the PS4 is offering. Headlined by Rise Of The Tomb Raider and Halo 5: Guardian, there's also Forza Motorsport 6, Fable Legends, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition and the recently released Rare Replay.

A second consecutive strong finish to the year should further help Xbox's position in the face of PS4's greater sales, despite, as Spencer says, the console selling better than the hugely successful Xbox 360 in the same period.

"I honestly don't goal the team on how many units Sony sells," continued Spencer "I think about what we're going to do, and how many Xbox customers we have across 360, Xbox One and Windows – thinking about the combined community of people on Xbox and playing those games, and that number's never been bigger.

"There are ways to sell consoles by losing more money on hardware and building an unnatural business construct that I'd never want to do – at the end, when people make a commitment to Xbox and the consoles they buy, the games they buy, they want to know that Microsoft and Xbox is in it for the long run. To sacrifice the long term for any short term gain doesn't make any sense.

"I really focused on our first-party investment, and you see it showing up in 2015 and 2016. Next year's line-up is pretty incredible, and we haven't even talked about all the games that are coming next year."

As of now Xbox One's 2016 line-up includes Gears of War 4, Quantum Break, Crackdown 3, Scalebound, Recore and indie darling Cuphead. It is a strong start to the year ahead, but Sony will be significantly ramping up its game with the likes of Uncharted 4, Street Fighter 5, The Last Guardian, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Ratchet and Clank and the release of virtual reality headset Project Morpheus.

You can read Eurogamer's full interview with Phil Spencer here.

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