Console manufacturers should collaborate on cross-platform bans and the ability to block other users, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said.
Speaking as part of a wide-ranging New York Times interview, Spencer said he would like Xbox and other console makers to be able to work together on these ideas.
“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.
Another idea would be the ability to apply cross-platform user blocking – so that someone harassing another person could not just turn to a different platform to continue their abuse.
Spencer said he wanted to “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.”
On the topic of keeping Xbox clear of toxic content, Spencer made the point that it was “not a free speech platform”.
“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.”
Dodging a question on whether Xbox was better at content moderation than social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, Spencer said “the transparency of our business model” – where people paid for and enjoyed video games instead of being tempted to click “tumultous topics… that drive the most clicks” made things more straightforward.