Microsoft’s commercial strategy for Xbox has been leaked, and it shows that the firm is interested in XR technology but is still keeping it at arm’s length.
While Microsoft’s HoloLens and Windows Mixed Reality platform on PC are notable forays into XR, the company’s biggest gaming division, Xbox, has conspicuously stayed out of the competition thus far.
Xbox executives have been skeptical of XR for a long time, arguing that the industry is still too small to merit spending money on research and development. And while it seems unlikely that Xbox would release anything related to XR very soon, the firm is nonetheless keeping an eye on the technology as a possible opportunity.
The whole cache of documents that were released this week in the current Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft court case was examined by Road to VR. Some of Microsoft’s future plans for the Xbox brand have been leaked, and they show that the corporation is still wary of XR but isn’t discounting it either.
Xbox mentioned “AR/VR” as one of several “opportunities” it was considering as part of its “early thoughts on [its] next generation of gaming” in a document titled “Gaming Strategy Review” published in the middle of 2022. The same part also mentioned the company’s interest in cloud gaming and machine learning/artificial intelligence.
In a different part of the same paper, the firm included Windows Mixed Reality, OpenXR, WebVR, and HoloLens as examples of platforms and services that Xbox can use to create its “next gen platform for immersive apps and games.” However, it does not appear that Xbox is referring to XR when it uses the word “immersive” in this document.
Xbox may see XR as a promising market in the future, but the firm isn’t convinced that the technology has reached a sizable enough audience to be profitable.
In another part of the same document that surveyed Xbox’s rivals, the corporation acknowledged Meta’s massive expenditures on XR but concluded, “we view virtual reality as a niche gaming experience at this time.”
Microsoft planned to diversify its hardware portfolios by adding XR devices, but they weren’t mentioned in a long-term strategy paper from the middle of 2022 that covered the company’s intentions for Xbox through 2030.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that the stolen docs are merely a snapshot of Xbox’s perspective in the middle of 2022 and that business is constantly dynamic and priorities can soon shift. Xbox is probably giving XR (extended reality) a lot more thought now that products like Apple Vision Pro have been released.