While Microsoft has continued to be a pioneer for the console space since its inception two decades ago when entering the industry with Xbox, the firm is more and more interested into entering mobile as of late. Previously, it was revealed that much of the intentions of the Activision deal is to get hands on the established mobile space. Additionally, Xbox boss Phil Spencer expresses mobile to be essential in the future success of gaming for Microsoft as well.
When viewing what Microsoft has done to better itself for mobile players, it can be found in previous documents submitted from its FTC court battle. One shares how the Xbox firm used resources for xCloud rather than the upcoming Xbox Series X|S release in 2020. Furthermore, the Xbox firm continued this by also removing select games from NVIDIA GeForce Now as well to draw more users to play said titles.
According to a new email PDF part of the archive of documents published by the FTC, it reveals Spencer even considered shuttering all of Xbox for this ongoing mobile pursuit. Predating back to 2019, Spencer compared Xbox to Polaroid in which there was no draw in revenue and hypothesized solely focusing on mobile gaming through a separate venture under Microsoft.
“That said, there are a couple of data points that give us a glimmer of hope. More core games like PUBG, Fortnite and a slew of Chinese mobile games are way more like core PC/console games than they are like traditional mobile games (candy crush, clash royale etc) but still the vast majority of non-Chinese mobile gaming revenue is in areas where we have no strength,” Spencer adds in the email.
Among other things at Microsoft to pursue mobile gaming, former Stadia executive Dov Zimring in a separate document expressed his pushback to the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Part of it he believes that the project would only limit competition if processed for other platforms to be out of titles caught in the deal. You can read the full report by heading here.
How surprised are you of Spencer’s comment of mobile gaming at the time of the email?
Source: FTC
