Microsoft Corporation Xbox Chief Phil Spencer Sheds Light On Topics Ignored At E3

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Xbox Chief, Phil Spencer, spoke about the HoloLens, Xbox sales in China, how the gaming industry has evolved with the introduction of the 1TB Xbox One, and other information not mentioned during the company’s E3 conference. Here’s what the expert had to say.

Microsoft recently acquired the popular and creative block building game Minecraft, and used it to demonstrate the capabilities of the HoloLens, at this year’s E3 conference. The HoloLens was mainly marketed as a product that is expected to increase productivity and communications. Mr. Spencer explained that Microsoft is still working hard to find the “sweet spot for different scenarios”.

Productivity is still the main priority for the HoloLens, Also, being at E3, it was only fitting to demonstrate it with a game and Minecraft was the most authentic option. The HoloLens will target various segments of the market, when launched. “It’s hard to name a consumer-electronics device today, where games aren’t an important content category — whether it’s your phone, a tablet, [or] obviously PCs game consoles.” Mr. Spencer explained. The Minecraft HoloLens demonstration can been watched here.

Microsoft has been giving significant importance to its mobile gaming industry, and has invested a lot, given that console and PC games are a major part of its portfolio. Mr. Spencer explains that the reason for doing do so is that people who play these small mobile games develop addiction to them, and in other high quality games with time. He uses the "Angry Birds" franchise as a prime example. Angry Birds started off initially on mobile devices, and became so popular that it then appeared on the consoles. According to Mr. Spencer, just getting more people playing video games is “good for business”.

The launch of the 1TB Xbox One is also a sign of how the market has shifted away from physical discs towards digital storage. People have long been expanding digital storage capacity by plugging in a USB hard drive, even before the launch of 1TB consoles, which signifies the evolution of gaming. “Every game that’s released at retail is digital,” Mr. Spencer said, further stating that, “Being able to sell games directly through the dashboard and seeing that people want to buy them is important, so one of the reasons, we make a bigger hard drive is we’re seeing the adoption of digital purchases and we want to make that possible.”

Mr. Spencer also gives his view on why Microsoft has chosen to partner HoloLens with other Virtual Reality headsets like Facebook Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:FB), Oculus VR, and Valve’s and HTC’s Vive. “They’re different technologies. When you put on the Oculus you don’t see anything in the real world. It’s completely black,” he said.

Oculus had a head start on Windows, partnering to make Windows 10 the best platform for virtual reality is a logical choice.

The Chinese market isn’t as fruitful as expected for Microsoft, but Mr. Spencer is optimistic about future prospects. He claims that the company is going through its maximum sales since its foundation. There is also a major Chinese gaming conference scheduled in July, with Xbox as a major part.