Xbox Head Phil Spencer is concerned about non-gaming companies entering the market, but he believes that Microsoft can take the lead in the gaming space despite this growing competition.
If you've been living under a rock, you may have missed the news that Microsoft recently acquired Activision-Blizzard. This new deal makes the company's portfolio even stronger, further building on other major purchases such as it when it bought ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in late 2020. Now, Spencer believes that Microsoft is poised to take the lead in the gaming space, just as Facebook dominates social media and Google dominates web search.
Microsoft Has 'A Unique Point of View' on Gaming, Phil Spencer Says
Speaking to The Washington Post, Xbox Head Phil Spencer went into a little more detail about Microsoft's recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard. That wasn't all he talked about, however; he also praised his major competitors at Nintendo, Valve, and Sony.
"[Nintendo and Sony] have a long history in video games," Spencer said in an interview with The Washington Post. "Nintendo’s not going to do anything that damages gaming in the long run because that’s the business they’re in. Sony is the same and I trust them. ... Valve’s the same way."
However, these massive companies are not alone in the gaming space. Gaming is the largest entertainment market by a wide margin, and other tech companies that don't have decades of history in the market (such as Facebook and Google) have been encroaching on the space. While Spencer seems keenly aware of the competition, he also believes that these companies serve as a good analogy for Microsoft's dominance of the gaming market.
"When we look at the other big tech competitors for Microsoft: Google has search and Chrome, Amazon has shopping, Facebook has social, all these large-scale consumer businesses. ... The discussion we’ve had internally, where those things are important to those other tech companies for how many consumers they reach, gaming can be that for us."
Spencer's confidence certainly has the numbers to back it up; recently, Microsoft officially announced that Xbox Game Pass has reached 25 million subscribers. While that pales in comparison to the subscriber numbers of video streaming services such as Netflix -- one of the many tech companies that recently began to expand into gaming -- it's undeniably one of the largest subscription services in the gaming world.
What do you think of Phil Spencer's commentary on Microsoft's position in the gaming market? Do you really think Microsoft can be to gaming as Facebook is to social media or Google is to web search? Let us know in the comments below!
