In a memo sent out to all employees, Microsoft's recently appointed CEO Satya Nadella reaffirmed the company's commitment to Xbox and to using its gaming technologies to bolster productivity businesses.
"The day I took on my new role I said that our industry does not respect tradition - it only respects innovation," the memo reads. "I also said that in order to accelerate our innovation, we must rediscover our soul - our unique core. We must all understand and embrace what only Microsoft can contribute to the world and how we can once again change the world. I consider the job before us to be bolder and more ambitious than anything we have ever done."
Nadella defined Microsoft as "the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world." At the core of this vision are products such as Office 365, Windows Phone and Surface. While Xbox is not part of that core, it remains a fundamental part of Microsoft.
"As a large company, I think it's critical to define the core, but it's important to make smart choices on other businesses in which we can have fundamental impact and success," said Nadella. "The single biggest digital life category, measured in both time and money spent, in a mobile-first world is gaming. We are fortunate to have Xbox in our family to go after this opportunity with unique and bold innovation. Microsoft will continue to vigorously innovate and delight gamers with Xbox."
In addition to the strength of the Xbox brand, Nadella also noted that Xbox and gaming technologies played a significant role in boosting the company's core products.
"We also benefit from many technologies flowing from our gaming efforts into our productivity efforts - core graphics and NUI in Windows, speech recognition in Skype, camera technology in Kinect for Windows, Azure cloud enhancements for GPU simulation and many more," he explained. "Bottom line, we will continue to innovate and grow our fan base with Xbox while also creating additive business value for Microsoft."
