It looks like Phil Spencer and crew don’t look at Sony and Nintendo as competition. In a recent interview, it looks like Spencer isn’t trying to stir up competition next-gen with the blue and red brand, despite saying that he would; but instead, Amazon and Google seem to be on the Xbox brand’s radar.
At this point, I’m not sure what the Xbox team wants. One minute, you have Spencer telling website videogameschronicle.com that he wants to compete next-gen. Later you have his partner Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, saying that he isn’t looking to compete or go head-to-head with Sony when the Xbox Series X drops as per gamingbolt.com.
As of today, Spencer is now in agreement with Booty, insofar that Sony and Nintendo are no longer a threat since Amazon and Google are the new “problem” to the green brand.
The above information comes from publication site protocol.com, which covers why big tech companies are betting “big” on gaming in 2020 and how these companies are “finally taking the games industry seriously.”
With all of that said, the site’s write-up sits below:
“Microsoft’s Spencer says he doesn’t consider Sony and Nintendo his main competition anymore, largely because neither of those Japanese companies owns its own top-end global cloud infrastructure akin to Microsoft’s Azure platform. One of Microsoft’s main selling points for the new Xbox will be integration with its xCloud technology, which is meant to allow you to play the same game across a console, a desktop PC and a mobile device.”
Although that is Protocol’s take, below lies what Spencer thinks of Sony and Nintendo:
“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 cloud over the years.”
Spencer continues:
“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.”
The aforesaid further underlines why Nintendo’s company president, Shuntaro Furukawa, isn’t worried about next-gen consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X stealing fans from the company according to videogameschronicle.com.
Finally, you can expect the Xbox team to focus its efforts on trying to compete with Amazon and Google from here on out.
