Phil Spencer påstod at Microsoft overvejede at forlade spilindustrien under Activision Blizzard-forhandlingerne

Retssagen mellem FTC og Microsoft byder på den ene saftige detalje efter den anden om Microsofts Xbox-planer. Nu har vi også fået indblik i en ret dyster overvejelse fra Xbox-ledelsen. I en lækket e-mail-korrespondance mellem en FTC-advokat og Xbox-chefen Phil Spencer forklarer sidstnævnte, at hvis ikke der kommer flere Game Pass-abonnenter via PC/Cloud inden 2027, kunne Microsoft finde på at trække sig ud af spilindustrien:

"I do not believe that that is what the future Xbox business would look like. This is a presentation from our devices organization to the gaming leadership team, so this is the view from the team that is chartered with building our hardware on what the future business would look like.

I can fairly safely say that if we do not make more progress than this off of console, we would exit the gaming business. If this were the outcome, we would -- I don't believe we'd still be in the business.

A majority of our customers are found off of our own hardware, I would hope by earlier than 2030. So, when you asked me if I agreed with this chart that the light green and blue depending on what colors you see there would have to be much larger much earlier. I would say by FY26, '27 that we should be in that position, or we'd have to make a different decision with the business."

Det er selvfølgelig værd at huske på, at denne udtalelse bør ses i lyset af Microsoft, der prøver at opkøbe Activision Blizzard, og at truslen om at forlade spilindustrien kan være blevet anvendt som et argument, der skulle overbevise dommerne og FTC. Spencer har tidligere udtalt, at Activision Blizzard-opkøbet ikke er knald eller fald for giganten. Taget i betragtning hvor mange andre udviklere Microsoft har opkøbt gennem de seneste år, virker det også usandsynligt, at de pludselig skulle sælge dem alle sammen igen for at forlade industrien.

Tak, Wccftech.