Phil Spencer the head of Xbox says that Microsoft will have to fight with two other companies in the long term…

In a statement, Phil Spencer named the two new rivals for the Redmond-based company. Protocol’s article is about how big tech companies are investing in gaming. (Facebook is one of them: they acquired Oculus, so they have a foothold in the virtual reality industry!)

„When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward. That’s not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to re-create Azure, but we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in the cloud over the years. I don’t want to be in a fight over format wars with those guys while Amazon and Google are focusing on how to get gaming to 7 billion people around the world. Ultimately, that’s the goal,” Spencer wrote.

Format wars? Yes. (Games on cartridge or games on Blu-ray discs? Physical or digital games? Locally run games or cloud-based gaming?) Spencer meant cloud capabilities. Both Amazon and Google head this direction (Google Stadia), and they all utilise cloud-based infrastructure (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud). No wonder Sony teamed up with Microsoft to work on future streaming technologies (and Sony can thus gain access to the Azure servers). When will Nintendo start considering the cloud?

So Microsoft is openly considering the cloud as the future of gaming. The Xbox Series X will also have xCloud integration when it launches this Holiday season. Still, he effectively underestimated Sony and Nintendo, and both of them have been in the console industry for more time than Microsoft!

Source: WCCFTech

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