Yesterday, Google unveiled the Stadia, their new gaming platform that will be solely streaming-based. It raised some eyebrows, not only because this marks the internet giant’s first serious foray into the gaming world, but also because their streaming focus is reflective of already-announced similar initiatives by many other companies—such as, for example, Microsoft, who announced Project xCloud last year. What do they think about Google making such a splash with their announcement?
In a leaked internal memo sent out by Phil Spencer – the head of Xbox and gaming at Microsoft – to employees, it seems as though the response is mostly one of feeling vindicated at being on the right track. Spencer’s memo, which you can see for yourself below, points out that Google’s announcement serves as validation of Microsoft having seen the right path, praising some of Google’s more innovative features, and then finally promising to “go big” in response at E3 with Microsoft’s own offerings.
On the whole, Microsoft’s cloud offering is more intriguing to me, because they have the content to back their services up (more than Google, at any rate), and because they have already stated they don’t see xCloud as replacement for consoles—which is clearly not how Google sees things. Now to see how Microsoft plans on responding to Stadia.
You can read the full text of the leaked memo (via Thurrott) here:
“We just wrapped up watching the Google announcement of Stadia as team here at GDC. Their announcement is validation of the path we embarked on two years ago.
Today we saw a big tech competitor enter the gaming market, and frame the necessary ingredients for success as Content, Community and Cloud. There were no big surprises in their announcement although I was impressed by their leveraging of YouTube, the use of Google Assistant and the new WiFi controller.
But I want get back to us, there has been really good work to get us to the position where we are poised to compete for 2 billion gamers across the planet. Google went big today and we have a couple of months until E3 when we will go big.
We have to stay agile and continue to build with our customer at the center. We have the content, community, cloud team and strategy, and as I’ve been saying for a while, it’s all about execution. This is even more true today.
Energizing times.
Phil”