In the world of video games, there are 4 main rivals going at it. There’s Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and then the “PC Powers” which is mainly Steam and Epic. But in terms of consoles, the Big 3, as they are known, have been going at it for a few generations now, and you’d think that with everything that’s gone on in the last two years, they would know where they stand. But according to Xbox Boss Phil Spencer, we, the people, don’t know the real score. Right…
This came when Phil Spencer was talking with Protocol, who asked him about the competition from Sony and Nintendo, and he noted the following:
“When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward. That’s not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to re-create Azure, but we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in cloud over the years.”
While that may be true, many gamers will note that the Cloud service investments that they have been doing haven’t helped their sales. In terms of console sales, they were dead last in the Xbox 360 generation, and while the Wii U was a bomb, the Nintendo Switch, in less than 3 years, has outsold the Xbox One, and the PS4 has FAR outpaced the system with over 100 million in sales.
Not to mention, while people are still loving the Switch and are eager for the PS5, the buzz around Microsoft’s next console, the Xbox Series X, isn’t that high right now. As for Amazon and Google, their “threats” are something that microsoft is clearly “seeing,” especially with the clear failure of the Stadia.
So why is Spencer saying things like this? It might be to show people that Microsoft is thinking BEYOND gaming, which is fine. But to say that Nintendo and Sony aren’t the real competition? That just makes it sound like he’s saying Microsoft can’t be them when it comes to gaming.