Microsoft’s New Gaming Cloud Division Readies For A Future Beyond Xbox

Cloud Services Seen As The Future Of Games

Microsoft launched its first video game in 1981, aptly called Microsoft Adventure. It was an MS-DOS game that was started directly from a floppy disk and cleared the way for Microsoft's adventures in the game. A lot has changed over the last 37 years and if you think of Microsoft's efforts in games these days, you immediately think of Xbox. It is also fair to say that many things are about to change in the coming decades, and Microsoft is preparing. Today the software giant is introducing a new division of games in the cloud that is ready for a future in which the consoles and the games themselves are completely different from the current ones.

Microsoft has been developing this movement for a while. The company has mysteriously associated companies with games in recent years. From Havok in 2015, Simplygon in 2017, to PlayFab earlier this year, you've probably never heard of any of them, but they're important to the audacious ambitions of Microsoft's cloud games. While these acquisitions were taking place, Microsoft reorganized its gaming equipment as the company prepares to launch its own cloud gaming services. Phil Spencer is now the head of Microsoft's games and reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft's new gaming cloud division is led by Kareem Choudhry, a 20-year veteran of Microsoft who worked on Outlook, DirectX and Xbox Engineering.

"Phil wanted a really dedicated team that focused solely on the game's cloud," Choudhry says in an interview with The Verge. "These were relationships that were fully advanced and began to build the organization of the organization." The new division is for operators of game publishers to use Microsoft's cloud services. Ubisoft uses services in the cloud Azure of Microsoft for PC, Xbox for PS4 with Rainbow Six: Siege recently, in Black the game for mobile devices Black Desert uses Azure virtual machines in databases. Microsoft wants more and more games to be the cloud, especially because the games become more connected in different devices for their multiplayer experiences.

Microsoft’s New Gaming Cloud Division Started At The End Of Last Year 

Microsoft Wants To Reach 2 Billion Gamers In The World 

"We believe that there will be 2,000 million players in the world, and our goal is to reach each of them," Choudhry explains. Part of the way Microsoft has the new focus on the cloud for games is with subscription services. Xbox Game Pass has been available last year and recently Microsoft has decided that all of its games at the first level would reach the subscription service at the time of launch. Sea of Thieves is the first major title, but future games from Halo and Gears of War will also be available. "We are very pleased with the success that exists [with Game Pass]," says Choudhry. "We continue to believe in the user's choice and we also believe there is room in the industry for a game plan and that's what we're going to build."

A "Netflix for filmed games" would be a significant facility for any corporation with aspirations to play in the cloud, but it will be a difficult task for Microsoft for reasonable podiums such as PlayStation 4 or Nintendo Switch. Despite the challenge, Choudhry insinuates that Microsoft could achieve this by sending games to devices. "We are looking for ways to make that content available to everyone, no matter what device they are on," says Choudhry.

It seems that every two years a new service comes to life, promising the transfer of games from powerful servers. Sony has purchased the OnLive streaming gaming service only to disable it, and Gaikai has taken over earlier, which eventually became part of the PlayStation Now gaming service. Sony last year suspended the game's broadcast to PlayStation 3, PS Vista, PlayStation TV and smart TVs and Blu-ray players and decided to concentrate on the PS4 and Windows PCs. Broadcasting games is a challenging service to do things right, and even Nvidia tries its luck for PC games.

Microsoft has bullied Xbox game streaming within three years and it will clearly be part of the new cloud gaming division. "We spend a lot of time thinking about that space," Choudhry explains. It is a "lot of things" that have to come together, including creating a business model that is attractive to third parties. "What we do with a game and make a subscription-based product, where half of content is third-party content.

Microsoft has intimidated the transfer of Xbox games in three years and will clearly be part of the new games segment in the cloud. "We have spent a lot of time thinking about that space," Choudhry explains. It is a "lot of things" that must be united, including creating a business model that is attractive to third parties. "What we do with a game and create a product based on a subscription, where half of the content consists of third-party content.