Omdia analysts George Jijiashvili and Matthew Bailey summarize Microsoft’s latest news about Game Pass and cloud gaming, while highlighting their key
Ahead of virtual E3 and Microsoft’s own Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed the company’s focus on gaming, with emphasis on its Game Pass subscription service and cloud gaming. “Gaming is fundamentally aligned with our mission as a company,” stated Nadella, who underpinned the company’s big ambitions in gaming, which it hopes will grow in tandem with Microsoft’s array of capabilities ranging from hardware, consumer-facing services, development tools, and cloud services. Microsoft provided several updates, including its intention to release Xbox streaming devices, it partnering with smart TV manufacturers and telcos over supporting cloud gaming, geographical expansion of Xbox cloud gaming for later this year, and some new usage stats around Game Pass. Web browser-based cloud gaming solution will open up to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate in the coming weeks, providing a way for iOS device owners to access Xbox cloud gaming. It also revealed that it will be bringing cloud gaming to the Xbox app on PC and importantly also integrate it into its consoles, enabling intriguing use cases such ‘try before you download’. Xbox revealed that it is building its own streaming devices to enable Xbox cloud gaming on any TV or monitor. Details are light on the ground as to exactly what these devices will function and look like, but it is likely that they will compete with low-cost Amazon Fire TV and Roku sticks in a bid to more effectively expand the audience for Xbox cloud gaming. And, while these devices are likely to be mainly marketed as dedicated games streaming devices – effectively sitting below the One S/Series S in the company’s hardware lineup – they will almost certainly support other streaming media, most notably video. Microsoft got burnt when it placed TV and video consumption at the heart of its Xbox One strategy in 2013 and has, rightly, placed the emphasis squarely back on games since then.
