Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella: “We are redefining what it means to be an Xbox fan.”

As the games industry struggles with the quieter end of the year, it’s time to bring back the ‘Xbox is dead’ discussion once again, as it’s always one hell of a click/ad revenue generator, right? This time, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft takes centre stage in a clip picked up on by the lovely Stephen Totilo over at GameFile (who is always paying attention!) as Satya states Mircosoft are “redefining what it means to be an Xbox fan.”

While much of the industry – from fans, pundits and the general gaming media – were focusing on The Game Awards, Stephen decided to check out a recent Q&A held at the tail end of Microsoft’s Annual Shareholder meeting last week.

It’s here where Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stage answering a question regarding how he feels on the purchase of ActivisionBlizzard, now a year in, and Satya talk through things, referencing the recent Xbox marketing campaign of “This is an Xbox”. You can see the below clip here, shared by Tom Warren, Senior Editor at The Verge.

“If I think about it, we chose the secular growth category in entertainment, which we think is gaming and said let’s double down on it. It’s been a passion for Microsoft ever since.

In fact, I think Flight Simulator launched before Windows or Office even. And so it’s like one of the longest franchises in this company. And so we said let’s take that joy of gaming everywhere.

And that’s why even these ads with Xbox now, where we have redefining what it means to be an Xbox fan; it’s about being able to enjoy Xbox on all your devices. So our strategy with Activision content now is in full force.

We feel fantastic about the progress we’ve made and more importantly, I think  long term as a company, we can bring the best of AI innovation, cloud innovation, console innovation, PC innovation to build the best games that can be enjoyed by gamers everywhere.“

Of course, none of this is actually new information, but many are taking these statements as further evidence that Microsoft’s entire slate of upcoming Xbox games will be going multiplatform in the future, with the focus being that they end up releasing on Microsoft’s primary console competitor – Sony’s PlayStation 5.

What does “redefining what it means to be an Xbox fan” actually mean?

In many ways, despite the great output in actual video games from Xbox this year, with Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Flight Simulator 2024, Towerborne, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred and Starfield: Shattered Space and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle all released in 2024, it feels like Microsoft and Xbox are ending the year just as it began.

The platform is constantly surrounded by constant discussion about what their multiplatform strategy actually is, and why it remains so increasingly and frustratingly vague. While many are taking the above statement as further confirmation that Xbox won’t have permanent exclusives going forward, it still sounds like more of the repeated ‘case by case’ approach to me – which means that the team at Xbox will do whatever they feel like.

Matt Booty, in an interview with Variety earlier this month, was quoted as saying: “We are very much making the [exclusivity and windowing] decisions on a game by game basis. And each of our studios is in a little bit of a different position.

There’s also the production timeline on a game, so the decision on spacing comes there first. We want to make sure there’s a great experience for our Xbox players, and then the gap between [when it becomes available on PlayStation] is as much a production decision as it is anything else. This is a game that was in production before we acquired Bethesda, even.”

Our community certainly are very passionate about the ongoing debate, so why not wade in and have your say? You can join the XboxEra forums for free, and our community Discord is a pretty welcoming place to chat video games too.