Microsoft Working On ‘Expansive’ Game Investing For Xbox, Cloud

The Xbox team knew it had a rough last year, following the cancellation of both Scalebound and [...]

Microsoft Xbox

The Xbox team knew it had a rough last year, following the cancellation of both Scalebound and Fable Legends, and having Crackdown delayed to a 2018 release, leaving only the Xbox One X, Forza Motorsport 7 and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds to carry them through the holiday season.

But it seems to have learned its lesson, as, during a quarterly financial conference call today, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has noted that the company is looking for more "expansive opportunities" when it comes to gaming.

He's looking at not only how the games are created and distributed, but also played and viewed. And despite the setbacks with releases last year, the company just had "one of the best quarter in gaming with strong revenue performance and record levels of engagement."

He explained that Microsoft is "continuing to attract, retain, and deepen user relationships across Xbox Live, Game Pass, and Mixer," and how the company's spring release of Sea of Thieves "drove gameplay" across both Windows 10 and Xbox One to more than 10 million hours of viewership.

But going back to the games, Nadella said that the team would "continue to invest in the platform enhancing the cloud services with AI capabilities for developers to quickly build and monetize their games across PC, console, and mobile."

As far as the first quarter performance goes, Financial Officer Amy Hood noted that Microsoft's gaming business was "significantly better than expected," but noted that a good amount of this success came from a "third party title." Our guess? Probably PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which has sold millions of copies since its arrival on the platform.

Now, there wasn't too much talk about which way game direction was headed on the Xbox One, as Microsoft is likely saving that discussion for its big showcase at E3. But needless to say, the company is set to go all in with games. We'll see what it has to offer at that time, but fingers crossed that we continue to get big exclusives like Sea of Thieves and Crackdown 3, along with other games of those types.

And no more cancellations. C'mon, guys.

The Xbox One X is available now.

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