Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has explained the company as a whole is “all-in on gaming” during an interview with Xbox chief Phil Spencer.
Spencer quizzed Nadella ahead of the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase on Sunday to hear the chief exec’s thoughts on Microsoft’s broader role in the games industry.
Although there are some predictable marketing beats, it’s interesting to hear Nadella suggest that Microsoft in its entirety — not just Xbox — is prepared to lead the charge when it come to democratizing video games.
“We believe we can play a leading role in democratizing gaming and defining that future of interactive entertainment, quite frankly, at scale,” said Nadella, when asked why gaming is such a priority for the technology and software giant.
“There are really three, I think, areas or key areas where we believe we have incredible competitive advantage. First is our leadership in cloud computing; second, the resources we have to build out the subscription value with Xbox Game Pass; and third is our overall focus on empowering creators. I’m really excited about the opportunity in gaming.”
Spencer pointed to how Microsoft and Xbox already uses cloud technology to bring game experiences to more players, prompting Nadella to highlight how the company is also helping developers use that same tech to scale production — particularly when it comes to backend work.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is how we are enabling game developers to do just that with Azure PlayFab (Microsoft’s live service solution), which now holds more than 2.5 billion player accounts. It’s being used as the backend for more than 5,000 games, so there’s a lot of exciting things that the cloud can enable.”
You can hear more from Nadella and Spencer by checking out the full interview on the Xbox Wire blog.