Satya Nadella: The Xbox Brand Is Very Important To Microsoft's Overall Strategy

I find this extremely interesting- and this hopefully:

• Shuts up hopeful speculation from Sony fans that Microsoft will leave the business
• Explains why Microsoft is putting so much of a premium on Xbox Live numbers going forward

When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella first took the job back in early 2014, he laid out a bold vision for the company: "Mobile first, cloud first."

At the time, it didn't seem to mean much.

But in the last year and a half, Microsoft has undergone a radical shift, slowly but surely transitioning into a company that doesn't care what device you use, so long as you're using a Microsoft app on it. It's pretty cool.

Now, with a big update to the Xbox One console coming this November that adds Windows 10 at the core, Nadella's vision is coming to Microsoft's gaming business.

"It's not really hard to think about that [vision] with games," says Xbox Group Product Manager Peter Orullian.

So far, most of Microsoft's transformation has been focused on productivity.

The Office 365 cloud productivity suite, in particular, is growing beyond its Microsoft Word/PowerPoint/Excel roots, and into a set of useful apps and services that work on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android, and, oh yeah, Windows Phone.

For gaming, the equivalent is Xbox Live. Microsoft is pushing Xbox Live as the center of your gaming life, across PC and video game console, just as it's pushing Office 365 as the center of your working life.

"It's the glue," says Lavin.

The Xbox app in Windows 10 is like Facebook for your gaming life.

The Xbox app on Windows 10 has a lot of nifty features: You can use it to take and view screenshots and recording from within any PC game. You can use it to view all of your Xbox Live friends, and see what they're playing, either on the console or on the PC.

Best of all, you can actually use it to stream the Xbox One across your local network, letting you play console games right on your Windows 10 PC.

It means that from any computer, you can launch any of your games, Windows or Xbox. And with the Xbox Live service underpinning it, it adds a really sticky social layer that keeps your achivements and friends list consistent between the two.

"It doesn't matter where you are," Lavin says.

In the bigger picture, it means that the door is open for Microsoft to serve gamers the same way it's serving businesspeople, students, and other people who get stuff done.

And under the leadership of Phil Spencer, Nadella's appointee to lead Xbox and gaming across the whole world of Microsoft, that plan is working. And Nadella and Spencer are working together to make gaming into a big part of Microsoft's sales pitch to the world.

"He is fully on board with gaming," Senior Global Product Marketing Manager for Xbox Live Mike Lavin says of Nadella.

SOURCE

What do you think? I like the idea of Microsoft serving gamers for a consistent experience across multiple devices, but still serving flagship hardware- it's the exact same strategy they have followed with tablets and phones. What does this mean? This means that Microsoft's center of focus is Xbox Live going forward, but they will still always serve up Xbox hardware as their flagship- the same way they have Lumia phones and Surface tablets in spite of their corresponding services being on other devices.

LoL, good luck replacing Steam.

The Microsoft ecosystem is bigger than just games, that is the point.

Also, it's not Sony fans that want MS to leave consoles, it's gamers. If/when Xbox 2 is announced and they take another swing at trying to shackle you to DRM policies, people such as myself will be making "See I told you so" posts until your eyes bleed.

Why not make room for the Steam Machine in the console war? MS has already proven that their licensing and service model screws up everything once, after all. Now that Sony is charging for online, we all have to decide if this is something we really want to play a part in the future.

It's also naive to think that Satya Nadella is even aiming these words towards gamers in the first place. As they have to change their tune a second time in earnings reports this generation when it comes to XBox market performance, the people he really needs to chill the effort out right now are investors.

@charizard1605: yep, which is why staying in gaming doesn't have to take the shape that it is now. They'll be offering PC games on the store, sure enough, but no one is going back to gfwl as their portal when there's Steam.

Now, the day MS tries to strong-arm Steam the way they tried to strong arm console gaming, gamers such as myself will absolutely revolt.

@Shewgenja: No need to replace steam. Steam will be around just because of Steam sales alone. This is just MS expanding it's software-cloud ecosystem to compete more with Apple.

Man, it's barely 9am and Shewgenja is already having a meltdown

Regardless, even if your so called " gamers want MS to leave" is true, if MS lays down the better infrastructure virtually and physically they'll have no choice...

And MS currently has better infrastructure than anyone in the gaming industry... Yes, their Xbox One has weak hardware... but that's all there is that's holding them back really.. I can't think of something else at the moment.

Their cloud is not a joke as everyone wants to make it out to be... Azure has been around for quite sometime but focused more on the business industry..

But the way they want to use it in the gaming industry is too early for it's time... It's too dependant on internet connection and speed..

I also fear for those initial ideas they had.....but they failed... And it certainly was just because of greed.

But at the moment, I kind of like Phil Spencer... the vision changed as soon as he became the head..

But I don't trust MS whatsoever... And no one should....No one should trust any company..

Also, riddle me this, if XBox One is such a huge piece of the puzzle for MS, does this not negate the dialogue about Mattrick being alone in designing it?

Fancy that.

This^

Apple is scary... and the true rival of Microsoft....

The future plans of Xbox One? Might have been decided after Mattrick left, since Nadella started after Mattrick left.

Do you honestly think he designed it without any consent of what to aim at from MS ?

That's not how business works.. sorry.

You are taking that way too literally and going to one extremity..

Of course not, but I hope you realize that the entire top brass of Microsoft has undergone a tectonic shift in the last few years, and that the people who designed the Xbox One then are not necessarily the people handling the Xbox One right now, no matter where in the hierarchy they fell. I also hope you realize that business strategies can entirely change- Microsoft may not have viewed the Xbox One as an important part of their strategy back then (maybe it was a side distraction to them compared to Windows then, which we know it was), but now they have reassessed and realigned their entire strategy. It's no different from Apple treating the Apple TV as a 'hobby' for all these years, and now suddenly, it's the most important product in their lineup.

Also, I have to say, all these scattered posts jumping from one perceived point to another, none of them actually framed effectively, and none of them responding to anyone in particular, really make you seem insecure and eager to downplay this for some reason. Fancy that.

@acp_45: Nope, it's just refreshing to hear someone finally admit it rather than swinging from the marketing points.

Also, damn, such a change from last generation. I thought it was all about the choice once upon a time.

@charizard1605: No no, I've seen the light. You're right. After all, there's no possible way that the XBone would run W10 interface on it without the left hand talking to the right all this time, and there's no possible way Mattrick was just the sacrificial lamb for policies that wrecked their market share.

After all, the new Gaming Messiah #BasedSpencer went on record as saying that the messaging wasn't right for the original policies. Yeah, you nailed it. I'm way insecure in my point of view. The pieces don't fit at all. Certainly not when XBox fans can come on here and have the audacity to say that PC gamers will have no choice but to use Live for gaming, despite that having crashed and burned once already.

I've been saying this for a while but the cow detractors cant see the forest for the trees. All they can do is lol about dx12 and 'teh cloudz' and ridicule. Nevermind that windows 10 nor any of its features have actually been implemented on the console yet.

MS made a few major mistakes this gen and it cost them. But their actual plan for the X1 was rather ambitious and sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed. Contrary to popular belief, in my opinion MS' biggest mistake wasnt the always online DRM or the mandatory Kinect, it was expecting console gamers to be ready to go full digital which was the lynch pin for the entire thing. When you remove that piece the entire thing unravels. To top that off they did a really poor job of explaining the virtues of what they were trying to do. Remember, back when the X1 was announced Windows 10 had not yet been announced. They should have laid out the whole integration plan from the beginning (which they probably didnt do for strategy sake I suppose) or waited until Windows 10 was out in the open to announce. Like it or not, physical media will soon be a thing of the past just like vcr tapes and CDs. But they came off as bullies trying to strong arm people into it rather than coaxing them with incentives.

The Xbox brand is becoming part of Windows. By next gen Xbox will just be a branded pc like a Surface Pro is a branded laptop/tablet. Spencer has already demonstrated that basically when Windows 10 is integrated, it will technically be possible to use any windows app on the console, like using Office or Outlook. So basically it will become a low end pc. Thats the reason they are pushing thru keyboard/mouse integration to the console.

Microsoft makes money from software, and hardware is just a means to an ends to sell more software. They dont have to replace Steam, they just have to be mildly competitive with it. PS4 fans like to brag about 30 million PS4s sold (which is an outstanding feat), but Windows 10 has a target window of 1 Billion devices and most people using Steam use Windows. Even if only a small portion of that number are hardcore gamers, with the feature as an integrated part of those devices they are bound to get a good number of people to use the Xbox app.

I know most people hated the original launch plan, but I actually could see the value in it. Granted I have really good internet, my devices are always online anyway and I'm not a physical collector, but I was really disappointed when the family sharing plan got dropped and hope at some time in the future some reiteration of it will return.

@oflow: I'm glad there are some people in this world that saw Live being taken down that one Christmas along with PSN and still double down on what a great idea it would be if their console was a shiny paper weight when that happens.

@Shewgenja: Nothing has garaunteed uptime. Things happen. What do you do when your power goes out due to an outage? Wait for it to come back on. When my internet or cable go down due to an outage I do something else for a while. You are making mountains out of molehills. As the bandwidth increases for the general populace physical media will go away. Its not an if its a when. Physical media has many negatives particularly on the environment.

Yes breakdowns in the system happen. But I think the world will keep spinning if you cant play games for a few hours. PSN was down for damn near a month didnt stop them did it?

That is quite clear from what they have been doing recently TC. And check out this tweet Phil Spencer made earlier:

"Xbox One is the most important gaming product at MS. Team Xbox is 100% committed to making it our best console generation ever."

@oflow: My condo is on downtown Houstons power grid. My elec stays on during hurricanes. Wish I could say the same about ISPs but that's not the reality. When I buy my house, I'm going solar like a boss. I don't believe in electricity that goes out. That's so 20th century.

What else could he say really?

MS's CEO will never admit defeat with Xbone. It's still possible MS will leave the console industry but stay in the gaming sphere, although in a different approach a la steam,...

Damnnn those Moogenja insecurities.

I love it

LOL

@Shewgenja: I live in Los Angeles. Its a reality. I lived thru your crappy Houston Enron gouging us here in Cali.

Microsoft says Xbox One will never sell without Kinect

I honestly think MS is way too ambitious..

They should've kept quiet about their them trying to implement Azure cloud into gaming because they won't be using even a quarter of that in the next few years and they haven't for the past 2 years. Yet that was one of the biggest topics for quite some time. The Cloud needs good internet connection and a decent speed at least to work.

@magicalclick: They also said their console would be a water cooler. What's your point?

@acp_45: I dont think anything is wrong with ambition, I think they underestimated how many people in the US still have garbage internet and how many console players are physical collectors.

It also didnt help that their announce was around the same time as all the NSA stuff was in the news and lots of gamers being half wit tinfoil hat wearers were all crying about the NSA spying on them. Like the NSA wants to watch a bunch of disgusting fatbody gamers sitting on their couches stuffing cheetos and hotpockets into their faces lol

Of course.. I agree. Ambition is good. And MS shouldn't stop being ambitious.
But just as you said they overestimated their fanbase.

@acp_45: Well ambition without good leadership equals disaster. Hopefully things will continue moving forward in the positive from here on out. I'm just happy everything is falling in line I cant wait to play Halo 5.

Lol!

Anyway, good to hear it straight from Nadella. Future looking good for Xbox.. hopefully Spencer stays on long term.

@magicalclick: I dont think the cable part is going away. Theres too much money in streaming content right now for it just to be dismissed.

You know.
MS is very good at saying things.

I'm actually quite liking MS' direction with regards to unifying their services. They've built Xbox Live into a great service, and unifying these services across multiple devices is a great step.

You mean like Games for Windows Live?

One thing that will interest Japan the most is converting a phone into a full-fledge TV. I do think Mobile Continuum will really take off there.

Maybe a more elaborate version...yes.

"Gamers" want MS to leave gaming? You make no sense with that statement at all cause gamers don't care so much for the hardware, they care about the software, the games. Only fans put so much time and effect to dislike a console they don't want to a point that they come on here and 85% of their post is anti Playstation or anti Xbox, kind of like yourself. You dislike the Xbox so much that most of your post is about it lol. Gamers want choices and variety in the games they want to play and fanboys want to monopolize it to 1 console which makes no sense.

Its only a matter of time before Apple has a gaming system. Having direct access to the youth is a no brainer.

To this day there are still casuals that think the Bone has the always connected DRM. You are patently wrong. It's not the 90's any more where people don't really know what people are talking about when it comes to gaming. The internet happened and first impressions make or break a product.

A article for lems by lems. A Lem Mod, geesh.

What is his suppose to say? The xbox division is worthless and we will can it at first chance?

"Gamers want MS to leave gaming."

lolno

If that happens then Sony is going to get lazy, competition is good. The more games and competition the better. Plus it encourages MS, Sony and/or Nintendo to step up their game.

This is very true. The problem is that Microsoft isn't content with competing in a market. They aren't even content to dominate the market. They want to own the market. It is Microsoft's policy to eliminate competition (embrace, extend, extinguish). You enjoy the benefits of competition today at the expense of monopoly like conditions tomorrow.

Well, outside of Windows that strategy is working awfully. Zune, Windows Phones, and Surface line says hello.

Once again your theory is flawed for a couple of reason.

1. Yes you are right there are still people out there that think Xbox One doesn't play used games and blah blah blah and those are pretty much casual. Problem with your theory is that casual don't sit there and wish MS get out of gaming, they are casual so they can care less. They don't put the time into researching or knowing what's going on in the gaming world to hope and wish anything one leave, they don't care which brings me to number two

2. Gamers know the truth about these consoles, gamers are on this website and other website so we know what the Xbox can and can't do but real gamers don't want MS to leave cause the more choices and variety the better. If MS was to leave gaming and sell Halo, Gears, Forza and etc to Sony it wouldn't bother me one bit cause I have both consoles. I'll gladly play Halo on the PS4 if that was the only option. If Sony was to leave gaming and sold Uncharted, R&C, Imfamous to MS, would you buy a Xbox? Probably not cause you have some dumb dislike for MS and Xbox which bring me to my original point.

Only fanboys like yourself want MS to leave gaming and Sony to monopolize it. Only fanboys sit there and post Anti Xbox threads when they don't have one and vice versa. Only fanboys want Xbox to disappear not thinking about how that would change gaming most likely for the worse. While you'll sitting there bickering and arguing nonsense, the heads of Sony and MS are just having dinners, laughing it up and congradulation each other all the time lol. It's pointless.

@BigShotSmoov007: Only fanboys like you are the ones saying inane dumb shit like Sony will monopolize gaming without MS and XBox to play the good deputy in Gamerville. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

The capacity for failure in this industry is what drives it. When Sony thought people would take two jobs to afford a PlayStation, they got smacked down. When MS spent their latest console reveal telling you about TV and sports, they got smacked down.

I mean, you're right. Console gaming should definitely not be a monopoly. I fully agree. Which is why I cannot fathom for the life of me why you sit here and say that a console maker that runs the show on two gaming platforms but creates their own game creation APIs is the one guy we absolutely cannot see drop out.

Face it. You cast a vote in the same breath with castigating me for championing an election process. You can't wave that fanboy nonsense at me and not get called out on it. I mean, does it really bother you THAT much knowing Steam Machine is chomping at the bit to take the place of XBox in the console war? Don't answer me. Answer that for yourself.

why the **** should I care care about their "overall strategy"

I want good console with good games not some weak ass system with nothing but Forza and Halo

Dude you can never lump me in the same fanboy light you live in. Everytime I come in here you always have some negative Xbox rant going on. I clearly said if MS left gaming I wouldn't care I would just game on the Playstation which I have. You seemed to completely overlook my question on whether you get an Xbox if Sony left. As far as Sony monopolizing console gaming, as of right now they would. Who is making a console right now? Steam machines are far off cause they can't even come to the conclusion of just 1 maching, they are all over the place with their prices and what they want specs to be and console gamers aren't turned on by that fact.

I already have a WiiU and plan on getting an NX. No, I will never buy an XBone. I might buy XBox Two, but judging from statements made and positions being held about an always connected console, I am very leery of what the next XBox will look like. Could be great! Could also be a shit show.