It might be hard convincing thousands of laid-off developers, industry leaders who had their studios suddenly shut down, and the dedicated staff behind abandoned projects that the video game industry is a flourishing rainforest. But Ed Fries, who led the original Xbox team and Microsoft's gaming division as vice president until 2004, is going to try.
Speaking to The Expansion Pass podcast channel host Luke Lohr in an April 8 interview, Fries dismisses the idea that gaming is falling apart due to generative AI and says, "It's just not true." He stresses the fact that "PC games was the largest growing part of the game business last year. So here we are, 25 years later [from the original Xbox release], and you know, it just shows the potential for games is still huge. The potential for growth is still huge."
Fries also seems sated by the evolving importance of global game markets, agreeing with developers based in China that the country is moving to the forefront of AAA gaming. He says, "when we launched Xbox, India and China looked very similar. Now, some of the biggest game publishers in the world are Chinese. So India is growing. Middle East, obviously, with owning Electronic Arts now."
