Zona de Azar USA – Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: Why Microsoft is All-in on Gaming

USA.- June 14th 2021 www.zonadeazar.com Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked with Xbox game leader Phil Spencer about why Microsoft is all-in when it comes to gaming.

The hour-long business discussion with a bunch of Microsoft Xbox executives preceded the company’s upcoming reveal event for games on Sunday at the all-online Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Wisely, the company got the dry business stuff out of the way so it can focus on the sizzling gameplay revelations on Sunday.

The conversation between Spencer and Nadella focused on the importance of gaming at Microsoft and in the world. Since this was such a vital conversation for Microsoft’s cred in the game business, the company decided to share it in its entirety. It was smart of Microsoft to separate this business talk from the other event. A message of this power displays was targeted at game publishers, shareholders, and developers, as Microsoft has to convince them it is more serious about games than Nintendo or Sony.

These are the sorts of questions I would quiz Microsoft about, if I had the chance. But fans would have hated this presentation because it would have taken up a lot of time talking about the game business, rather than showing them actual games and gameplay, as Microsoft will do on Sunday.

“Gaming has been key to Microsoft from our earliest of days,” Nadella said. “Our oldest currently supported software franchise is in fact our game Microsoft Flight Simulator, which we released three years before the first version of Windows, even. Gaming is fundamentally aligned and woven into our mission as a company. When you talk about Xbox’s mission to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet, which I absolutely love, this is precisely what I think of when we think about Microsoft’s mission, which is to empower every person, every organization on the planet to achieve more.”

That was good reinforcement of the CEO’s confidence in games, which is a healthy business but a very small part of Microsoft’s overall business and value as a company. It reminded me of Google CEO Sundar Pichai showing up at the Game Developers Conference in March 2019 when Google entered the game business by unveiling its Stadia cloud gaming service. Of course, that venture hasn’t turned out as well as Google had hoped. But CEOs coming onstage to talk about games is a strong endorsement of the opportunity at hand.

“As a company, Microsoft’s all-in on gaming. We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale,” Nadella said.

Edited by: @MaiaDigital www.zonadeazar.com