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Xbox boss Phil Spencer says he's "not a fan" of marketing deals with console exclusive content

Unless it's a 12-month timed exclusive. Is what he forgot to say.

phil spencer e3 2017

In the wake of Microsoft's E3 press conference, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has been a busy old bee.

He's already assured us all that the Xbox One X won't have any launch issues, and says Microsoft doesn't consider the PS4 Pro to be a competitor to the Xbox One X.

Now he's sharing his thoughts on marketing deals in an interview with Eurogamer, and for a company that had a 12-month timed exclusivity deal for Rise of the Tomb Raider and Dead Rising 4, his comments were surprising.

"I don't know what deals get written. I've been pretty open about, I'm not a fan of doing deals that hold back specific pieces of content from other platforms. You don't see that in the deals we've done with Assassin's and Shadow. We'll have a marketing deal on those, but I don't say, hey, I need some kind of Strike or skin somebody else can't play.

"I don't think it's good for our industry if we got into a point where people are holding back the technical innovation of game developers based on a marketing deal. I don't know anything about what's in other people's deals.

"But this, clearly, from a technical perspective, is the most powerful console by quite a wide margin. So, when I stood on-stage and I said this will be the best place to play all those games, there's nothing technically that would keep any developer from not making that true."

Pot, kettle, black, Phil, you cheeky monkey.

What do you think? Is a 12-month timed exclusive deal somehow better than holding back a skin? Or is Phil playing silly buggers with this comment?

Chime in below.

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Shabana Arif avatar

Shabana Arif

Contributor

Shabana has been writing about video games for over a decade, and has been contributing to VG247 on-and-off for most of that. She is currently a Senior Content Creator for Mirror Gaming, providing the mainstream masses with the gaming news.

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