Xbox head Phil Spencer has suggested Sony and Nintendo are no longer the company’s main competition in the world of games.
Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have long been considered the games industry’s ‘big three’ thanks the the success and impact of their various consoles, but as the next-generation approaches Spencer claims his traditional rivals are “out of position.”
Speaking to Protocol, he says the fact that neither Sony or Nintendo boasts its own cloud infrastructure similar to the Azure platform that’s driving Project xCloud — Microsoft’s ambitious game streaming service — means they’re not at the forefront of his thinking.
Instead, he views other tech giants like Google and Amazon, the former of which has already launched its own cloud gaming platform in Stadia, as his biggest challengers.
“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,” commented Spencer. “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 cloud over the years.”
He also suggested that Microsoft will continue looking for ways to work with Nintendo and Sony, as there’s no point in “[waging] format wars while Amazon and Google are focusing on how to get gaming to 7 billion people around the world. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”
You can hear more from Spencer by checking out the full interview on Protocol. It’s well worth a read.
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2020