Microsoft Says Its Xbox One Policies Are “Set In Stone”, But Things Could Change Down The Road

I know, “set in stone” and “things could change” are contradicting each other, nonetheless Microsoft executive Phil Spencer wanted to explain what he meant.

The anti-DRM sentiment running through gaming’s web these days isn’t enough to force Microsoft to make a 180 on its  Xbox One policies. At least not in the short term.

Speaking in an interview with CVG, Spencer said:

I’m going to say this in two ways, so if it’s confusing please let me know. We wanted to set our definitive policy in black and white terms on Xbox Wire, which we did last week. That’s our policy.

When we first shipped the Xbox 360 the idea of a Netflix didn’t exist. That robustness that we see in the digital marketplace around content wasn’t there. Free-to-play wasn’t a way that people bought games.

And through the life of 360 there have been policy changes and Marketplace changes that have responded to consumer demand, creator demand and what’s happening in the marketplace.

So in plain English, if market trends change, Microsoft would consider changing its policies, but in the here and now, what you read is what you get.

We will be as attentive to that feedback on Xbox One as we were through 360. So what Larry’s saying is that these systems evolve. We’re a software company. If you think about the amount of times we changed the operating system on 360 – it was a number of times.

But we wanted to set our policy as it is for Xbox One in clear terms so that there wasn’t ambiguity in what our stance was. That was our intent.

Xbox One will launch in November in certain countries. To make sure yours is supported, go here.