Dave McCarthy is the Head of Xbox Operations and General Manager of Xbox Services, meaning he’s been deeply involved in the lead up to the reveal of Xbox One X. We had a chance to sit down with McCarthy at Microsoft’s E3 event space in downtown Los Angeles and talk about a range of topics, from how the company plans to explain native 4K to potential customers, how Minecraft has influenced Sea of Thieves, and why the company’s press event had fewer big budget first-party games and timed downloadable content (DLC) exclusives.
Let’s start with the DLC.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
On the absence of downloadable content exclusives
The Verge: We saw “Console Launch Exclusive” through the Xbox E3 presentation, but we didn’t see what had become really common in the last five years: timed downloadable content exclusives. Is Microsoft is still pursuing these partnerships with third-party developer or did any of those games show have DLC partnerships?
Dave McCarthy: So the launch exclusive terminology that we use basically means, in simple terms, it’s either going to appear first on Xbox or only on Xbox. And we can provide the breakdown of that afterwards, if you want to see that title breakdown. All of the AAA blockbusters are going to be across the Xbox One family of devices. They’re going to play great on One, they’re going to play spectacularly on Xbox One S. And they’ll play even better on Xbox One X overall.
The Verge: To clarify, it sounds like you’re saying you’re not focusing on third-party exclusives with DLC and that it’s more about the best place a game’s going to run is on the Xbox One X?
Dave McCarthy: We firmly believe that the best place to play these titles, all these titles, would be on the Xbox One X.
The Verge: And no third-party exclusives for DLC?
Dave McCarthy: The only exclusives were the ones we shared on stage yesterday.
Will Windows 10 get Xbox backwards compatibility?
Dave McCarthy: You just got the first taste yesterday of what we’re doing with original Xbox compatibility. We’ll have a lot more titles obviously to announce. I was saying to somebody, the audaciousness of supporting three generations across the Xbox One family of devices. The first couple of times that Phil [Spencer] brought it up in the leadership team, you got kind of the nervous chuckles around the table, like oh, he’s probably not serious when he says, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if. He stuck with it, and when he sticks with everything in the leadership team discussion, they’re like okay, I guess we’re going to make this happen. So it was really cool to see us release the news on Crimson Skies yesterday as the first one, but there will be more to come! It’s the same team that actually worked on the Xbox 360 backward compatibility overall. So these are our best and brightest compatibility minds looking at things. So watch this space!
How Microsoft will distinguish Xbox One X’s 4K from the PS4 Pro
Dave McCarthy: Seeing is believing, obviously, with a lot of this stuff, right? You see the difference with the weather effects and the heat coming off the car and the details [in Forza 7]. You know, if Anthem looked great from Bioware on the amazing 4K screen in The Galen Center yesterday. So a little bit of it is seeing is believing. But I get back to more of this: you’re going to notice a difference on your existing games, you’re going to notice a difference where developers in both first-party and third-party do these free 4K upgrades that we noticed yesterday, across a large number of titles overall. And then when somebody’s taking advantage of the frame buffer and you know, Dolby Atmos, and the wide color gamut, and all of the bells and whistles, it’s going to be hard not to notice the difference.
The Verge: Are you concerned that, right now, a lot of people don’t have 4K TVs? Even if they do, things don’t probably stream in 4K from their cable box. Maybe they aren’t even watching 4K on YouTube because of their wireless connection. What steps are you taking to put people in these environments where they’re going to see what you’re describing?
McCarthy: Sure, right. There will be obviously some retail partnerships that we look at. Demo experiences that we’ll do. I wouldn’t say from a 1080p TV perspective you’re going to be all that disappointed either, right? I mean you have automatic super sampling from the Xbox One X to your 1080p TV. It’s still going to look pretty damn amazing. In fact, at home, I’ve been running this setup. We’ve had the kits for a couple of months now, and it’s remarkable how I literally took the Xbox One X home, I put it on top of my Xbox One S. I pulled the HDMI cable out of the S, pulled it into the S. I literally re-synced my controller, using the one button touch. I had all my games on my external hard drive, plugged it in [to the X]. There was no install time. It was all running.
And I was sitting with my son and I didn’t even tell him what the box was. He turns to me within five minutes and he’s like, “Dad, what’s happening with this box? Why is it running faster? Why does my game look different and better overall? And I said, “Well, I can’t tell you right now, son. But–”