Molyneux: Next Xbox should focus on games

Former Microsoft higher-up and longtime Fable designer Peter Molyneux has offered his take on how Microsoft should handle the approach to its next-generation console. Speaking with Edge, Molyneux said he would like to see Microsoft make the platform game-centric above all else.

"What I would do is double-down on what this console is for: it's for playing games," Molyneux said. "It's for playing console games for this massive, incredibly loyal audience of gamers out there. When they start to mix all this other stuff in there I’m kind of slightly like: 'look, I don't want another way of looking at Facebook'. You know, I've got all the ways of looking at Facebook. I don't want another way of looking at Netflix. Just give me what I've paid my £299 for, and that is to play amazing, incredible computer games."

Molyneux left Microsoft in 2012 to start independent studio 22Cans. He suggested he was briefed on the next Xbox before he left the company, but is now only "kind of" aware of the approach Microsoft plans to take with the new platform.

The designer may have a role to play in Microsoft's next-generation announcement next month. He revealed earlier this week that there are 50 layers left in his latest game, Curiosity, and that he expects the center of the cube to be reached May 21, the same day as the next Xbox reveal.

"There's an interesting opportunity, possibly, for me to… well, I can't say any more than that. There may be some words from me around that time. I'm not saying any more," Molyneux said.

Microsoft has previously suggested the next Xbox will be much more than just a destination for games. The company said its ambition for the platform's reveal event next month is to highlight the "beginning of a new generation of games, TV, and entertainment."

Microsoft also recently hired former CBS television executive Nancy Tellem to develop "interactive and linear content for Xbox" at a new production studio in Los Angeles to help make the Xbox platform an all-in-one destination for entertainment.

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