Microsoft CEO: We Will 'Always' Invest in Gaming and Xbox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 5 days ago / 7,625 Views
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma recently held an internal Q&A with employees (via Windows Central) in which Nadella stated Microsoft will "always" invest in gaming and Xbox.
"There are core identities in this company," said Nadella. "I don't think Microsoft will exist without these identities continuing to thrive. We're a platform company, a developer company. Being a knowledge worker company, and gaming.
"These are the main identities of what Microsoft has always meant, and will always mean. Therefore, we need to take that — we don't take it for granted. We need to renew it. I'm really thankful to Matt [Booty] and Phil [Spencer] and Sarah [Bond], and all of you who have built this franchise into its 25th year."
He added, "Frankly this applies to anything that we do. We should be in the core of what we do here for gaming's sake. It's not about anything other than being just an excellent company, and an excellent steward for what it means to produce great games, produce great systems and hardware.
"The trickle from that excellence to the rest of the company becomes straight forward. I joke with [NVIDIA CEO] Jensen Huang, if it wasn't for gaming [NVIDIA] wouldn't exist. Think about it, without DirectX, I don't think the entire GPU revolution, or the acceleration would've happened.
"That's why I'm long on it. Phil, he's always talked to me about how gaming is the largest entertainment category — what is gaming in its most expansive form going forward? This doesn't mean we walk away from people are doing today — when we think about a AAA game on a console. The question is about where else can we go to extend that. For me, we're long on gaming. We'll continue to invest, and we'll always do so. It's up to this team to show an excellence in execution, and creativity. Software always carries risk, but this is software with lots of creation risk. It's way different. But yet, we have to be the best-in-class at it."
Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma stated she has been spending as much time with the different teams at Xbox and that great games can't be "manufactured," but instead need to be "crafted."
I'm spending a lot of time thinking about how I can empower these worlds, these stories, and these characters," she said.
Satya chimed in stating, "The storytelling, why do we love games? They tell the stories, the mythologies that make us who we are. Getting down to that core, the craft that goes with it, this is the place where we have to get the cultural zeitgeist and then have it manifest in everything that we do. In the games, in the marketing approach, everything that we do in this brand represents that."
The CEO added that Xbox "at its best lifts the entire company" and hopes other parts of Microsoft can learn from Xbox. Gaming "emotionally touches us" and he "always" wants that aspect of Microsoft to exist.
Sharma did acknowledge Xbox has been facing difficulties of late as it has been in a transition phase. "Everything is being relitigated" when it come to Xbox's strategy.
"We have to make sure that the friends we have today, are the friends that you have tomorrow," said Satya on Xbox's existing customers. "You want to wake up feeling like your friendship has even grown stronger. We have to really make sure, whether it's console, whether it's PC, whether it's the lover of Forza, Halo, we really want to make sure they love us for what they expect us to do."
He added, "Attention is the a finite thing humans have. How can we earn permission, tastefully, for more of that attention? It brings joy back ... that's the thing I always think about. Gaming is an active engagement. It's not that passive 'scrolling' on things, and so on. I do want us to be the ones to bring back that active engagement. That's what console and PC represents in some sense. Why do people love the controller, the console, or their PC ... it's because you're immersed. I look at the reports. The level of hijacking of our attention that's going on ... I want us to reverse that. Joy in coding, joy in gaming, that's all I want us to live in. If we can bring that back, I think the world would be a better place for it."
"I want us to keep rediscovering that moment. The games people love, the consoles and systems people love, and really just doing the best job we can as a company. That's it. And that's all I want us to do," Nadella concluded. "For those fans who have counted on us, I just want to make sure that we live up to what they expect of us. I know there's a lot of feedback ... believe me, I'm on Twitter too sometimes ... but I really think it's that passion, though, that they have. This is the base of folks who just want us to do a fantastic job, of really doing what we're meant to do as team Xbox."
Microsoft last week announced its next-generation Xbox console, codenamed Project Helix. It will lead in performance and be able to play Xbox and PC games.
"Great start to the morning with Team Xbox, where we talked about our commitment to the return of Xbox including Project Helix, the code name for our next generation console," said Sharma at the time.
"Project Helix will lead in performance and play your Xbox and PC games. Looking forward to chatting about this more with partners and studios at my first GDC next week!"
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Show, don't tell.
Project Helix?
One (relatively small) "reveal" doesn't reverse the trust that they've lost for many. You may still trust them, but many others don't (including myself). We know pretty much nothing about it still. And the talk doesn't really help in that situation when they don't have mind-share. It serves to further annoy or foster ridicule from those who don't trust what's being said while there's not as much to be gained from those who are still in the camp of supporting the Xbox brand. It's been 2 solid weeks of headlines and trying to say all the right things without saying anything. It's tiring, and in my opinion the best thing they can do to foster trust is to show, not tell.
EDIT: I think the comment section here proves out my sentiment.
And if we are to dig into said reveal, the only thing it confirmed was the previous rumour that the next Xbox would work towards bridging the gap between PC and Xbox. In what capacity and with what policies or restrictions is entirely unknown and that is really the make or break stuff so for me it's hard to get excited while still knowing so little.
And I say all this as a formerly big Xbox fan. It's been tiring to watch them whiplash on strategy and bloat their PR instead of just quietly working towards building wonder and trust from my perspective. I'm ready to be "won back", but talking at me isn't going to do it.
Mate, they are making another console, its not that deep. If you like Xbox, buy it, if you dont, buy something else.
You talk about PR, Trust and winning back.. just buy a console the same way you are buying a car. Buy whats good for you and not the feelings of others.
Are you kidding?
They are investing so much money (way more than Sony) in their gaming division in the past 10 years (obviously including Activision purchase, that is one hell of a number by itself).
Whatever they do, it will never be enough for some people.
I mean, you can say that you do not like where they invested (or the way) the money, but asking them to show you that they are investing in Xbox/Gaming is kinda ludicrous at this point lol
I never said they weren't investing. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that. They absolutely are - more than ever in terms of pure dollars.
I was more addressing the part about how they are meeting players and developers where they want to be met and not taking that responsibility lightly and living up to expectations.
"We have to make sure that the friends we have today, are the friends that you have tomorrow," said Satya on Xbox's existing customers. "You want to wake up feeling like your friendship has even grown stronger. We have to really make sure, whether it's console, whether it's PC, whether it's the lover of Forza, Halo, we really want to make sure they love us for what they expect us to do."
Evidently based on games missing the platform and console and game sales slowing down, they haven't acted in a means that fostered that friendship so people aren't paying as much attention. And we can talk about how financially they have higher revenue than ever, but that's after absorbing Activision so things are masked and tricky to pick apart. Before that they were showing decline. I haven't done the analysis but I'd be curious to see how things look now financially in comparison to some kind of projected view of Xbox and Activision separately before combining.
Makes more sense :) Like I said, agreeing or not with WHERE they invested is another story. But yah, they definitely invested a lot of money :D
They've had a bad record though since xbox 360, it gets worse with each generation.
Yeah they invested 60 billion, on multiplay exclusives that were already scheduled for xbox. But its first party, which was lacking, or a bad release of exclusives, continue.
Gamepass may have saved them, but for the hardcore gamer that wants xbox exclusives, what faith have they got going forward after the current state of letdown , after letdown
It does not. Again, scores are showing it.
Most of people complaining are simply invested so much in another ecosystem (Sony, Nitnendo) that anything coming out of Xbox is going be bad as long as it is not an 11 out of 10. This is actually a problem with the gaming community since years now. It is all black or white and the market leader is usually backed by medias/players.
Forza, Grounded, Age of Empire 4, HellBlade 2, Flight Simulator, Diablo 4, Indiana Jones, Gears, etc. There are A LOT of good first parties but people keep coming with this non-snese that games are not good like Sony come up with games (first party) that are higher scores.. It is simply not true. If you do not like those games, it does not make them bad or a let down; it is just you.
Because people are mostly invested in Sony ecosystem, they will definitely "find" the games they are waiting the most (because it comes out on their plastic box) more appealing and better. That's a very human thing to do.
When 75% of the market is Play Station, that already takes a good 75% of people that will lean toward whatever Sony comes out with as this is where they invested their money... This is just simple logic.
And then we have Fable, new Forza Horizon, Diablo 4 expansion, Halo 1 full remake this year. How is that a let down? Again, Sony is not coming with half of this content but because people are mostly invested in Sony's platform, whatever game will come out of Sony will be seen as a Jesus Chris resurected...
Some of those titles are on ps5. I still stand by my comment, there aren't enough amazing games. Phil spencer really over hyped things along the years, and it sux several big games got cancelled, while others flopped.
He even admitted Microsoft can't compete with sony, hence the acquisition. I got a series s, and its by far the least used between ps5 and switch. To think its been over 5 years since the current gen started, i would have hoped there'd have been several more standout titles, by now. To make you happy, I've been waiting for fable and halo remake. Those two games will bring my xbox to life lol
You do not need to "make me happy" lol. What a ridiculous thing to say.
I'm talking about meta scores in general. People's feelings are GREATLY biased on whatever the Internet is on or whatever their wallet was used to buy.... And when it comes to Xbox, anything they do that isn't perfect will be criticized no matter what. You can argue if you want, but again, 75% of the market share is to Sony. so it is perfectly natural to have a general bias.
I listed PLENTY of games that did not flop. And you are simply ignoring them and need to focus on the "flops" as you call them like this is representing all games. I can argue (again looking at metascore) that Microsoft published not ONLY Way more games than Sony but the overall score of the "non-flops" (using this term to make you happy) are equivalent. The only difference is the media and toxicity of the gaming community in general, which will tend to bitch about whatever comes from Xbox for any possible reasons.
The Xbox One simply destroyed any chance for Microsoft to compete and we can argue if you really want (but I will probably not waste more time esp. after your "make you happy" comment) that coming back and convincing 2/3rd of people to abandon everything they invested in Sony / Play Station Fourduring the previous gen to buy the Xbox is easy but it was an almost impossible hill to climb, no matter the games...
Fair enough
I do not read bullshit.
You didn’t miss much. It mostly waffle where he doesn’t really say anything.
Are you reading back all of your comments in every Xbox related articles? Just curious :)
I don’t believe him.
Me neither. Nadella is an AI shill who's helping waste water and undermine the global economy.
I still waiting on these games spencer whas talking about all them years..
Xbox is probably the publisher with the most games coming out.
No matter how many they put out, you will still be "waiting"... That's how it is.
Quantity does not equal quality.
Yah well, nothing can more subjective than that.
Also, you people keep moving the goal post. At first, "they are not investing in Xbox/Gaming", then when we show that they are investing, "they have no games", then when we show that they have more games than others, "oh but the quality is bad"...
I mean, if you look at ratings, over the last 5 years, I'm pretty sure this is even, and there are a lot of good games from Microsoft.
The fact that most people have a PlayStation and have no interest in Xbox games (which were mostly exclusive) does not make those games bad.
You’re putting other people’s words into my mouth, as I personally have never made those arguments.
The Series X is my primary gaming console, and the consoles have been since the OG Xbox. Halo, Gears and Forza are some of my favourite franchises and I was quite interested to see where they would go following the Zenimax purchase.
But I don’t have faith in Xbox’s current direction, and the exec waffle isn’t exactly changing my mind.
Fair enough, you did not say that the investment but you literally just came up with quality over quantity when the orignal comment was about games in general.
Anyway I can understand that you may not find (personally) most of the games coming from Xbox studios in the past few years good or on par with Sony/Nintendo in term of quality but it is really subjective at the end as the scores in general are pretty similar.
I did not really have any issue with what Xbox came up in the past few years to be honest. And then next they are coming out with some nice new games: Fable, new Horizon, WOW expansion, Diablo 4 Expansion, Halo CE remake just to name the few for the next few months. I’m sorry but I do not see why the quality of those games should be in question compared to whatever Sony or Nintendo for instance are coming out with. I find this ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’ argument really weird, that’s all.
Their action in last few years make it hard to believe they are still committed to hardware especially if you live outside US, UK. They need to reduce Series S price, matching Series X price to PS5, improve stock, spend on console marketing. They can't just pretend Series S/X no longer exist and expect people to buy next Xbox.
How about investing in HUMANS INSTEAD OF AI.
And stop supporting genocide in Gaza.
Aren't comments claiming Israel is committing Genocide banned from gaming articles? I know for sure comments claiming they AREN'T committing genocide are banned.
Just go 3rd party already!! No one gonna miss your Playstation copycat wannabe consoles....
Just go 3rd party already!! No one gonna miss your Playstation copycat wannabe consoles!
Can we sue them if they don’t?
Cool, totally sounds like what real gaming companies announce all the time.
That´s kind of the fundamental issue here, that if they feel the need to make this kind of PR push, it already undercuts their stance. If they were just a real gaming company there would be no need for this. It´s kind of silly to claim MS is always and inseparably a gaming company. OK, they had Flight Simulator for many years, but that´s not exactly a real game.
I do think it´s worth clarifying that buying existing publishers is not actual investing. That´s just buying out an existing business at a premium. It´s not new investment, because these same companies could change hands dozens of times over, but that wouldn´t be an actual productive investment... This isn´t different than retail stock trading which of course already existed for it´s larger purchases. Those were self-sustaining profitable businesses, and already maintained organic reinvestment in new product. MS sustaining that isn´t actual new investment either. If MS can establish increased real investment beyond previous business trends at it´s purchased companies, that is great but one needs to subtract out existing baseline business trends first, and of course not counting buying out previous owners as an investment.
There just isn´t serious claims being made here. Of course MS cannot make claims about what they will do ¨forever¨. They could make claims about not considering business valuation for potential spin-off, JV, IPO, etc. But they aren´t doing that. That would be the most concrete and specific way to address doubt in their ongoing commitment to the business, because of course if they paid premium to buy these businesses, they aren´t going to just close them down if they can be sold. I don´t even see what would be the problem with such a proposition from perspective of most gamers, besides the most diehard Xbox console fans who honestly are already disappointed with current situation.
They have to recover some of that $100 billion they spent buying studios.
