Phil Spencer thinks that traditional video game companies are not technologically prepared for the game in the cloud.
The video game industry is experiencing a movement towards cloud technologies. The streaming game takes its first steps with projects such as Google Stadia, Project xCloud, PlayStation Now or Nvidia GeForce Now. In an interview with Protocol magazine, Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division, has reflected on the future and said he does not believe that Sony and Nintendo are his competitors for the future. For Microsoft, giants like Amazon or Google will be the ones who dictate the path in a while.
"When we talk about Nintendo or Sony, we have a lot of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors in the future," Spencer said. “It's not a disrespect for Nintendo and Sony, but traditional video game companies are somehow out of the game. I guess they could try to recreate Azure, but we have invested billions of dollars in the cloud over the years. ”
The cloud is inevitable, but not the present
Despite the importance of streaming, Phil Spencer said in another interview that the hegemony of the cloud is not yet in the present or near future. "I think the inevitability of the cloud as part of the video game industry is an absolute truth," he said in statements to GameSpot. Even so, "we have more devices around us than we have ever had," that is, the phone, the tablet, etc. Spencer then pointed out that the world in which devices are not at hand is not in "the one we live in now."
Google Stadia debuted at the end of 2019 with a service that is still taking the first steps and under a business model that has not yet finished crystallizing. Meanwhile, Microsoft prepares its Project xCloud, while fueling other services such as Xbox Game Pass. In the case of the latter, it is a service in which the player can access a catalog of hundreds of games and download them at the moment. The next additions will be Final Fantasy XV and Wolfenstein: Youngblood, among others.
