Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reiterated its vision with Xbox going forward when asked about the rivalry with Sony and its PS5.
It’s no secret that Microsoft is heavily focusing on Xbox Game Pass as part of its gaming strategy going into the future. The company wants to reach as many people as possible and believes that its ‘Netflix for games’ approach is the right direction. Meanwhile, Sony is taking a different approach with the PS5 as it appears to keep focusing on exclusive content that can only be played on PlayStation. During Microsoft’s annual meeting with shareholders, Nadella was asked what the Redmond-based company is doing to set its new Xbox Series X|S apart from Sony’s PS5 to win this console generation.
“What is being done to set Xbox apart from the PS 5 to win the console war?”, Microsoft’s Head of Investor Relations, Mike Spencer, asked Nadella.
In his reply, Nadella mentioned the power of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles but also highlighted Microsoft’s broader vision for gaming.
“First thing, we’re very excited about the new console launches in the market”, Nadella said. “We always have sort of focused on ensuring that our gamer community that counts on us to produce the best consoles has a new generation of consoles, which are powerful and really great for gameplay. And we are supporting it with the best content with the best community.”
The executive continued, “But the broader vision we have is to ensure that the 3 billion gamers out there are able to play their games, anywhere they want with all the content they want and with whom they want to. And that’s really what we are building our strategy around. You’ve seen us double our content portfolio with ZeniMax acquisition, you see us make advances in our community efforts and our subscription offers with Game Pass. And that’s what you can expect from us. We are absolutely very, very much focused on gaming, and ensuring that all the 3 billion gamers around the world get the best content, best community and the best cloud services to power their gaming experiences going forward.”
Interestingly, Nadella didn’t directly mention Sony’s console in his reply. Then again, Microsoft has already said that it doesn’t see Sony as competition going forward, mentioning Google and Amazon as the main competition.
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