{"id":339489,"date":"2025-10-29T00:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/339489\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:04:09","slug":"microsoft-ceo-talks-ending-exclusivity-and-mandating-higher-profits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/339489\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft CEO Talks Ending Exclusivity And Mandating Higher Profits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having failed to keep up with PlayStation through two successive hardware generations, Microsoft is pivoting Xbox<\/a> into something other than a conventional console platform. What exact shape that will take remains to be seen, but CEO Satya Nadella just outlined three of the core principles that will seemingly guide this new era of Microsoft gaming.<\/p>\n

The executive, who\u2019s currently on track to rake in almost $100 million in fresh equity awards<\/a>, started by reminding daily business show TBPN that the biggest gaming business in the world remains the Windows business. Everything else, including Steam, is built on top of that. And following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is one of the biggest gaming publishers in the world. In other words, the Xbox brand might be in shambles<\/a>, but Microsoft Gaming is bigger than ever. From there, Nadella laid out the company\u2019s evolving approach to exclusivity, interactive content, and hardware.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be a fantastic publisher, similar to the approach of what we did with Office,\u201d he told TBPM<\/a> (via Game File<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019re going to be everywhere, on every platform. We want to make sure, whether it\u2019s consoles, whether it\u2019s the PC, whether it\u2019s mobile, whether it\u2019s cloud gaming, or the TV, so we just want to make sure the games are being enjoyed by gamers everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Satya Nadella says he wants Xbox gaming to be like Microsoft Office: everywhere. <\/p>\n

Says the best way to innovate is through strong profit margins that can support risk taking. <\/p>\n

Calls for new forms of interactive entertainment to compete with short form video. pic.twitter.com\/pRbIqncXCc<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 AmericanTruckSongs9 (@ethangach) October 28, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He continued,<\/p>\n

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Second, we also want to do innovative work in the system side on the console and on the PC. And it\u2019s kind of funny that people think about the console-PC as two different things. We built the console, because we wanted to build a better PC, which could then perform for gaming. And so I kind of want to revisit some of that conventional wisdom. But at the end of the day, console has an experience that is unparalleled. It delivers performance that\u2019s unparalleled, that pushes I think, the system forward.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m really looking forward to the next console, the next PC gaming, but most importantly the game business model has to be where we have to invent maybe some new interactive media as well. Because, after all, gaming\u2019s competition is not other gaming. Gaming\u2019s competition is short-form video. And so if we as an industry don\u2019t continue to innovate both how we produce, what we produce, how we think about distribution, the economic model\u2014best way to innovate is to have good margins. Because that\u2019s the way you can fund.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For anyone who\u2019s been paying attention<\/a> to Xbox over the last 12 months, none of this should come as a shock, though seeing it come straight from Nadella shows there\u2019s no question that these are the new marching orders for Xbox moving forward. While the idea of a next-gen Xbox that sports a more open PC gaming ecosystem offers a lot of promise, even if it\u2019s priced at a premium<\/a>, the talk of higher profit margins shows this new direction comes at a cost.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg recently reported<\/a> that Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has been mandating a 30 percent profit margin target across Xbox, a sprawling gaming division where not every project is a hit and hardware has traditionally been a lossl eader in the hunt for a future upside in the form of platform fees and reoccurring customer spending. While healthy profits might give Xbox room to experiment in the future, over the last 18 months it\u2019s meant many canceled games and shuttered studios, and thousands of layoffs.<\/p>\n

Treating Halo like Microsoft Office and shipping it everywhere might be exciting to investors but it\u2019s not going to win much goodwill from existing fans who just saw Game Pass nearly double in price.<\/p>\n