Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, is advocating for a system that would prevent gamers who have been banned from one platform from wreaking havoc on other platforms, and vice versa.
In an interview with the New York Times (via Eurogamer), Spencer called for collaboration among major industry players to make cross-platform bans for disruptive gamers possible.
“Something I would love us to be able to do – this is a hard one as an industry – is when somebody gets banned in one of our networks, is there a way for us to ban them across other networks?” Spencer said.
While this may seem extreme, Spencer suggested a more reasonable solution – the ability for gamers to carry their banned list with them between platforms.
He explained: “[I should] be able to bring my banned user list… to other networks where I play. So ‘this is the group of people that I choose not to play with’. Because I don’t want to have to recreate that in every platform that I play video games on.”
Spencer also discussed freedom of speech on the platform, clarifying that Xbox is “not a free speech platform,” and emphasizing its focus on interactive entertainment and video games.
He added: “We’re a platform around interactive entertainment and video games. And we’re not there to allow all kinds of social discourse to happen on our platform. That’s not why we exist.”
Spencer also stressed that Xbox’s business model revolves around providing positive gaming experiences, and not about generating clicks, unlike other social platforms like Meta. As a result, disruptive behavior and misuse of the “free speech” card will not be tolerated on Xbox platforms.
