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Microsoft “Investing Aggressively” in Gaming Content, Community, and Cloud Services

During Microsoft’s quarterly financial conference call for investors and analysts, Chief Operating Officer Satya Nadella and Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood talked about the current situation of the Xbox business.

Nadella underlined that this fiscal year Microsoft’s gaming business passed ten billion dollars in revenue for the first time, and mentioned that the company is aggressively investing in content, community, and cloud services for games.

“In gaming, we’re pursuing our expansive opportunity from the way games are created and distributed, to how they’re played and viewed, surpassing ten billion revenue this year for the first time. We’re investing aggressively in content, community, and cloud services across every end-point to expand usage and deepen engagement with gamers.

The combination of Xbox Live Game Pass subscription and Mixer are driving record levels of growth and engagement.”

Nadella also commented on requent acquisitions.

“PlayFab accelerates our vision to build a world-class cloud platform for the gaming industry across mobile, PC, and console. The addition of five new gaming studios bolsters our first-party content development to support our fast-growing gaming services.”

Hood talked about the outlook for the gaming business in the current fiscal quarter (between July 1st and September 30th, 2019). Microsoft expects revenue growth around 15%.

“In gaming, we expect mid-teens revenue growth, with continued strong user engagement on our platforms. The software and services growth rate will moderate due to a strong third-party title launch a year ago.”

Rax wrote:Finally caved and picked up an Xbox One last week. Due to my shitty internet it has spent the last few days downloading Rare Replay, Minecraft updates apps, it still has Forza Horizon 3 and Sea of Theives to get through, so Ill eventually get to do some Xbox One gaming.

One thing I did like was as soon as I logged in and went to games and apps my digital 360 games were there waiting for me, that was nice touch, no hoop jumping, no manual scan, nothing like that. I need to look up what else in in the BC catalog and get "The Xbox Box"™ out of the attic, see what else I can play on there.

Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller has packaging that disabled gamers can open with their teeth

People spend hours watching gadget unboxings on YouTube, but you rarely see a box that’s designed to be opened with just your teeth. That’s a design consideration that Microsoft has taken to heart for its new Xbox Adaptive Controller packaging. “A lot of these limited mobility gamers are actually used to opening packages with their teeth,” explains Mark Weiser, a packaging designer at Microsoft. “We wanted to avoid any damage.”

Microsoft has created packaging that includes loops, multiple access points, hinges, levers, and ribbons to make it as easy as possible to unbox this new controller. Even the outside of the packaging that the main box will ship in has a loop that can be peeled away to reveal the main box. The main box includes a ribbon that can be pulled to activate a flap that lays flat to cushion the controller once a user pulls on the loop to remove it from the box. It’s a fascinating mechanism that shows the level of thought and detail that went into designing this.

Monkey Man wrote:(Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller and packaging)

twitter.com/majornelson/status/1022497498613477378

Errkal wrote:Awesome, don't have horizon 2 so that's nice.

DarkRula wrote:

Errkal wrote:Awesome, don't have horizon 2 so that's nice.

Do not - whatever you do - try for 100% on it. Each road trip - which is visiting three cities and doing four races per city - takes an hour+. Each city has 28 championships, so...

Trelliz wrote:Horizon 2 is on the cusp of being delisted and all the dlc taken down, they did the same with FM5.

Trelliz wrote:Horizon 2 is on the cusp of being delisted and all the dlc taken down, they did the same with FM5.

Venom wrote:I am the prodigal son - I have returned to the Xbox family! I will try Game Pass and some back compat games this weekend.