The FTC vs. Microsoft trial has a new chapter. Since the courtroom clash in July, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard extended their agreement to October 18 deadline to buy more time. Now, court documents leaked to the public reveal important insights into Microsoft's future plans in the gaming industry.
reported by the verge, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed plans to offer PC games via Xbox Cloud Gaming with Xbox executives Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, and Kareem Choudhry over email in 2021. It was a time when the now-defunct Google Stadia was a potential competitor, which Nadella brings up in the email chain like [Google] will have a leg up because their stuff is more generic Linux VMs + Network.... But I am assuming we will do the same for Game Pass PC--right?" Nadella asked.
summed up his thoughts on Stadia and confirmed that the team was working on a way to stream PC games using Azure, Microsoft's own cloud platform. "From a cost to the generic point is right," he told Nadella. "Google has the ability to reuse their Linux cloud hardware and yes as we stream PC native games from an Azure GPU SKU we would have more re-use scenarios to recoup costs. "Phil is correct. Sarah [Bond] and I in partnership with Jason’s [Zander] team are driving a suitable Azure SKU... as part of a series that will serve the customer demand we see externally for IAAS and to run our xCloud PC streaming stack," Choudhry further explained.
Xbox Cloud Gaming already allows streaming for Xbox games, but not for PC games. While these emails prove that there were plans to stream PC games through Xbox Cloud Gaming, that might not necessarily be the case anymore. However, it's still a believable plan based on Microsoft's recent addition of keyboard and mouse support to Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Back in August 2022, Microsoft reacted to Sony raising the price of PlayStation 5 consoles and indicated that it wanted to remain competitive by not doing the same with Xbox Series X|S.
According to FTC filings and internal emails first reported by the verge Xox CFO Tim Stuart told Phil Spencer and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood that the Xbox team had anticipated PlayStation's decision to increase prices of its console. Ami Silverman, former head of consumer sales and marketing, said that Microsoft should be "gamer-obsessed" as it has "not gotten out of the woods...we know this could our time to win fans vs lose being a follower." This info comes as part of ongoing disclosure discussions related to Microsoft acquisition of activisionblizzard.
What Silverman is most likely referring to is Xbox's position against PlayStation, who is the market leader. Even Microsoft publicly admitted that Xbox had "lost the console wars" against PlayStation and Nintendo. Microsoft also put out a statement in August 2022 saying that it is constantly evaluating the business and wasn't looking to raise prices at the moment.Microsoft eventually increased the price of the Xbox series x back in June in most markets except for US, Japan, Chile, Brazil and Colombia. Microsoft also increased the monthly subscription prices for the base version of Xbox Game Pass by $1.
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