Microsoft CEO Talks xCloud, Says It Won't Come At Expense Of Console/PC

One of Microsoft's strategies for the future of gaming is streaming. It's still early days, and Microsoft's xCloud service has only just released, but CEO Satya Nadella said recently that he sees a lot of potential for streaming to help grow gaming beyond console and PC.

During Microsoft's latest earnings call, Nadella cautioned right up top that xCloud is still in its "very early days." But with that in mind, Nadella said Microsoft feels optimistic about the opportunity that streaming provides to help expand the market for Xbox beyond traditional platforms.

"The service today really allows us to take our catalog and not be limited to any of the traditional endpoints, in particular the console and the PC, and expand beyond that. And so, as you can imagine, that I think from our research perspective is very exciting to us," Nadella said. "And the fact that we now have a technology solution to do so, we are in the very early innings of that."

Also during the interview, Nadella stressed that Microsoft remains intent on providing a good experience to fans on console and PC, despite whatever investment it makes into streaming.

Nadella said Microsoft is intent on "ensuring that we are doing a fantastic job for all our console gamers and PC gamers." This comment lines up with what Xbox boss Phil Spencer and others have said before, that Microsoft's strategy is to meet players on whatever platform they have.

Spencer has said he wants xCloud to be on every screen in the world, and one way Microsoft may do this is by selling a streaming stick of sorts that you can plug into your TV and play Xbox games. Microsoft is doing all of this so it can create more Xbox Live users who pay the monthly fee and create a bigger stream of recurring revenue for Xbox.

Business is good at Xbox lately, as gaming revenue at Microsoft just reached quarterly revenue of $5 billion for the first time ever thanks in part to the launch of Xbox Series X|S and more. Overall, Microsoft made enough money in the past three months to pay for the Bethesda acquisition twice.