Ever since the launch of the original Xbox in 2001, Microsoft has remained as one of the three platform holders in the gaming industry. Their strategy has evolved since then a good deal, focusing more on subscriptions and services while branching out beyond dedicated devices, though they are still launching those with the recently released Xbox Series X/S. If you think they’re going anywhere, well, think again.
In the most recent Annual Shareholders meeting, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked about the Xbox division and how the company viewed its gaming focus going forward. Nadella made it pretty clear that the company remained dedicated to Xbox and gaming in general. He points to the recent acquisition of Zenimax/Bethesda as well as the successful launch of the new systems mentioned above as examples of how much resources they are pooling towards the division (big thanks to Seeking Alpha for transcribing).
“First thing, we’re very excited about the new console launches in the market. We always have sort of focused on ensuring that our gamer community, that counts on us to produce the best consoles, has a new generation of consoles, which are powerful and, you know, really great for gameplay. And we are supporting it with the best content and with the best community.
“But the broader vision we have is to ensure that the 3 billion gamers out there are able to play their games anywhere they want with all the content they want and with whom they want to and that’s really what we are building our strategy around. You’ve seen us double our content portfolio with the ZeniMax acquisition.
“You see us make advances in our community efforts and our subscription offers with Game Pass. And that’s what you can expect from us. We are absolutely very, very much focused on gaming, and ensuring that all the 3 billion gamers around the world get the best content, best community, and the best cloud services to power their gaming experiences going forward.”
It’s interesting, especially when you consider that Microsoft was apparently not nearly as dedicated to gaming and Xbox after the underperformance of the Xbox One as recounted by Phil Spencer. Even though their dedication to specific boxes may wane with time, Microsoft seems to be pretty all in still on the gaming side and Xbox as a brand going forward.