WEBVTT - Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer (Extended Version) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:01.520 So I think the last time we saw you talked 0:00:01.639 --> 0:00:06.880 your son was playing minecraft. Yes, yes, minecraft, he does 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:13.039 do some good because of you. We have an Xbox, 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.439 but we have not graduated to minecraft on the console. 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:18.600 You know, because I've talked to you about my own 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.560 sort of fear of kids playing too much, and a 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.480 friend was try to think of it like he's it's 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.040 like a painting, like show it. Asked him to show 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:28.560 it to you like, like the same way you would 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:30.640 treat a painting. I want to see what you made. Yeah, 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:35.479 that's right. So make it a family thing. Hi Everyone, 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.120 and welcome to this edition of Bloomberg Studio. One point out. 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:41.159 I'm Emily Chang. He's in charge of one of the 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.240 top gaming consoles in the world, Microsoft xbox, a sixteen 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.760 billion dollar business home to minecraft, Halo and perhaps soon 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.960 call of duty if a seventy billion dollar deal to 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.600 buy act division goes through. The executive behind that deal 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.760 is Phil Spencer and if he has his way, he 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.760 helps the gaming industry will level up in the next 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.000 twenty years and be less a battle between rival consoles 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.520 and more a home to platforms that reach every potential 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.200 Gamer on the planet. Joining me on this edition of 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.959 Bloomberg Studio at one point. Oh, Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer, 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:28.880 so great to see you here in person. It's great 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.160 to be here in person things. So we're gonna start 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.840 by going in the way back machine a little bit. 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.199 Uh Did some research. You worked at a computer mart 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.520 in Vancouver, Washington, where you were selling and playing a 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.520 lot of computer games in the eighties. I'm thinking like 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:52.480 stranger things, stranger things resonates with my definitely growing up, 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.520 my inner geekdom is there. was there punk hair or 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.760 weird outfits or I definitely had long hair at the time. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.520 Drove my forward pinnow my Blue Ford Pano. Funny thing 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.560 is my my wife of thirty one years this year. 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.079 We were together in high school, so she still remembers 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.200 those days and she's like, you just haven't changed. You're 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:13.440 the same punky kid you were back then. I just 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:15.680 video games a little bit bigger now, but it's kind 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:17.400 of the same thing. I'm going to need some photographic 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.520 evidence of this. What were your most played games in 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.040 the eighties? Uh So, it's funny. When I started growing 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.120 up playing video games, most of it was going to 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.360 the arcades. Now most people won't remember these days of 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.080 like going to a store where you put quarters in play. 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.239 Robotron was one of my favorites in the arcades. I 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.840 would go play that and then probably more in the 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.400 seventies and the Eighties, I remember my dad bringing a 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:45.920 video game, the Atar, with the cartridges home, and that 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:47.760 was kind of the beginning of it and I just 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.760 kept playing and it's still with me. What was it 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.640 that you got from games? You know, I think at 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.520 first it was just like I was a kid who 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.640 read a lot of comic books, Played Dungeon Dragons, like 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:04.040 it was just kind of watch those movies and it 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.079 was just kind of in the in the space of it. 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.440 When I started working at Computer Mart, one of the 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.000 things I haven't talked much about this, one of the 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.120 things I did is I ran our bulletin board service, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.040 which is where people used to dial up on the phones, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.920 if you remember those, like the kind of whistling noise, 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.560 and people would log into our bulletin board service at 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:26.000 Computer Mart to see like what was going on with 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.160 computer games at the time and that kind of sense 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.520 of community, of people seeing this as a hobby as 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.040 much as it is just kind of entertainment. And then 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:36.360 seeing it grow to kind of online games and other things, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.320 that sense of community and bringing people together. Something's always 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.600 just stuck with me about video games. You started out 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:50.600 at Microsoft as an intern Um. How would you compare 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.560 Microsoft's history on Games under Bill Gates versus Steve Baber 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.840 versus such a Nidela? Yeah, I think like many things 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.200 at Microsoft back in the eighties we started in video 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.280 games as much out of kind of a defensive we 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.920 were worried that other companies might be putting the home 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.600 pc in place and the avenue to get there was 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.360 through video games and game consoles. So we say, okay, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.200 WE'RE gonna go start our own game console because if 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:17.760 anybody is going to build a computer for the home, 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.000 we wanted it to be Microsoft. I think through Steve's 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.839 years it was more about growing the business and how 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.640 do we bring kind of business leadership into this group 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.679 of rag tech people who are out there just having 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.839 fun building video games as part of Xbox. I think 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.560 with Satia, when I first took this job and I 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.080 got this job as head of xbox, about two months 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.200 after Satia Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft. Well, and 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.279 when Sata started there were activist investors targeting the company 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:49.760 stock hadn't been doing well. They were targeting xbox. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:54.480 and somehow you convinced Sacha to double down on games 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.799 at the time. Absolutely right that there was a question 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.080 of why are we in video games? In fact, one 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.360 of his first questions to me was because he had 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.080 come from the cloud part of the business being and 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.839 then cloud was he didn't actually understand why we're in 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.720 video games, not as a negative, just as literally, why is? 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:14.920 Why is Microsoft this at the time what one trillion 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.080 dollar Market Cup company. Why are we in the video 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.680 game business? And he he challenged us like, let's go 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.200 figure out why we're in the video game space and 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.000 see if it makes sense and if it does, let's 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.159 be all in and if it doesn't, we'd make other decisions. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.080 Early in that journey is when this game, which I 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.520 know you know about, is minecraft, and the opportunity to 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.279 acquire minecraft came about like months after this moment. So 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.760 I might have a kid or two that pays minecraft. Yes, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.960 and it really caused us as a team to think about, okay, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:45.599 if you're gonna go spend two and a half billion 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.880 dollars on this blocky Java base game. How does this 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.040 fit into the mission of this company? I'm gonna sit 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.040 in front the Board of Microsoft and explain. Here's this 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.599 game written by this one person in Stockholm, Sweden, that 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.360 we're going to go spend billions of dollars on. How 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.960 does it fit into the where Microsoft is going? Um, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.159 and it was a great kind of because it happened 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.960 so fast. It was a great, just concentrated effort to 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.240 build a strategy that we saw around video games and 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.760 we're still here. Let's talk about that strategy. Was the 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.960 idea to tie gaming to the cloud? Was that the clincher? 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.960 We started from the industry itself. We said, okay, what 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.960 do we see going on in the games industry and 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.120 do we think Microsoft has a capability to play in 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.040 where gaming is going and the things that we saw 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.120 through minecraft wasn't there at the time, but I know, 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:39.480 like roadblocks is familiar in your household, is today people 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.000 play the biggest games on any device. Like if you 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:45.000 think about a game like minecraft or fortnite or roadblocks, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.120 these are games that play on IPADS, they play on Xboxes, playstations, PCs. 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.880 That games were going from per device to per user 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:55.760 and cloud would be an enabler for that. But we 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.080 didn't start with how do we fit cloud into video games? 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.320 We were just kind of watching the trends of eiders 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.960 and where they were building and saw this transformation of 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.200 games being ubiquitous. How does this all, as you see it, 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.360 connect to Microsoft's future? The cool thing I see going 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.120 on now, and it does fit with the investments Microsoft's 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.880 making an Azure in other places, is today the world 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.320 anybody is a creator in the world. Anybody with a 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.040 camera can create content. Anybody who can record their voice 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.200 or record themselves playing an instrument can become a creator. 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.679 And Video Games are going through that same transformation where, 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.240 if I rewind to my childhood and playing video games, 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.760 I walked into like an egghead software and there was 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.480 a line of boxes and as a creator, if you 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.080 and I wanted to go create a game, we might 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:43.920 go create the best game in the world, but there 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:45.400 was no way for us to get it in front 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.600 of an actual person who might want to go play 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.600 because we couldn't get shelf space. All these things. Today 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.480 we see gamers on our creators on our platform from 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.120 all over the globe who can create a game that 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:02.120 can literally reach billions of people through our distribution capability 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.000 and that game sits in the lineup right next to it. 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.960 Like you take ten people in Slovakia. It's true, lute 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.640 rivers a game on our platform. Ten people in Slovakia, 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.240 they can put that game on Xbox and build an 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.200 xbox game. The game will sit right next to the 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:18.960 biggest budget games out there. FIFA A low call of duty. 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:20.960 It just sits there. To A to a player, a 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.800 game is a game and you can deliver that game 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.600 through the cloud to anybody who has a device that's 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.000 capable of reaching the Internet. I hear you're still an 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.920 avid gamer. How often do you play games? Like, how 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.880 many hours? I go to bed early, so I gotta 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.640 BET at ten at Seattle, at ten o'clock. People who 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:39.960 play with me online they tease me about how militant 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:44.640 I am. At ten o'clock I'm out. I probably play 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.040 fifteen hours a week, I'm guessing. Now my children, two daughters. 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.480 They're out of the house now. Um, my wife and I, Kelly, 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:54.920 have been together for a long time. She likes movies, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.920 since I'm not a big movie watcher, so we kind 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.080 of do our things and then we we have our 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.480 places that will go. I was playing last night. I 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.280 was playing escape room with a friend of mine in 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.319 New York City. I hear you play at work too, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:14.439 like that's totally work. UH, yeah, I mean, I, uh, it's, 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.080 as I said, like I think I've been and luck's 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.480 really not the right word, but I'm privileged enough to 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.240 end it up in a position where I get to 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.000 do something I really love, Um and match something I 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.480 care about and the capability that I see in games 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.720 with just who I am. You are also behind some 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:38.280 of Microsoft's biggest gaming deals, and you mentioned minecraft at 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.720 two and a half billion dollar acquisition. Of course, activision 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.559 we're waiting on. Talk to us about your act your 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.240 talk to us about your acquisition strategy. How do you 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:52.960 find in size up a good target? I'd say early 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.520 on we had gone through a time prior to satia 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.679 becoming CEO where we had downsized a lot of our 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.559 student yeos out of kind of business necessity. So at 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.600 first it was how do we just get more creative 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.480 capability inside of Xbox? So early on it was about 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.120 investing in creators that we knew who were kind of 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.000 at the forefront of thinking about some innovation once I 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.240 felt like our studios organization was back to the capability 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.800 that we needed, then we thought about unique capability to us. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.840 You see creation modes in Halo. You see creation modes 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.240 and flight simulator. You see us learning from things that 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.960 we've we learned from the minecraft team when they came 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.760 in Um. One of our other acquisitions was a company 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.680 called Xenomax, which has a long history and PC gaming 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.680 and you would think Microsoft would understand windows gaming, but 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.840 we kind of lost that DNA in the organization as 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.120 we focused on console. So bringing in xenomax and really 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.040 hearing from a lot of teams that were kind of 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.760 native to pc gaming and what they were what they 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.160 cared about it was very, very important. So we're thinking 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:04.599 about new additive creative capabilities to our studios organization that 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.480 hopefully makes our platform better. As I understand that you 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.760 do your own deals. You don't necessarily need permission from 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.000 Sacha to do a deal. Is that true? Now? There's 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.520 there's definitely. It depends on the amount of the money 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.160 and the deal. But when we think about some of 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.560 our bigger deals, we go to the board Um and 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.080 so Sati Nadella Amy Hood, the CFO have been incredibly 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.160 supportive Um and the board has like when we go 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.000 to the board and we talk about this space, I 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:35.720 mean as Xbox were one of the biggest consumer businesses 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.680 in the company. Were a brand that makes Microsoft relevant 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.400 to a whole generation that probably doesn't think about a 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.400 lot of other Microsoft products in their day to day life. Well, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.440 you're in the process of a potentially monster deal, seventy 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.080 billion dollar acquisition of activision. Talk to us about how 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:57.120 this deal came together when we were thinking about on 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.160 that idea of what are we capable of doing today 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.679 and where do we need to go? The biggest gaming 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.839 platform on the planet is mobile phones. UH, one and 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:13.400 a half billion people play on mobile phones and I guess, regretfully, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.120 as Microsoft, it's not a place where we have a 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.839 native platform as gaming. Coming from console and PC, we 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.400 don't have a lot of creative capability that has built 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.880 hit mobile games. So I know it's it's not the 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.959 focus of a lot of attention on activision, blizzard king, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.480 but I'd say that the king component of it, of 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:34.920 what they've done with candy crush and the learning that 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.600 they have around mobile. They've taken some of their biggest 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.880 call of duty and Diablo franchises to mobile and and 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.439 done well. We thought that was a really interesting capability 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.880 of what they had. The one thing about the video 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.840 game space is if you've been around, maybe too long, 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.240 you know most of the creators out there, so you 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.360 kind of know teams. That could be a good fit 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:58.760 in terms of what we were trying to do. But 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.360 we really started the discussions internally, at least on activision blizzard, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:05.920 around the capability they had on mobile and then pc 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.840 with blizzard. Those are the two things that we're really 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.400 driving our interest. Big Tech is under a lot of 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:15.280 regulatory scrutiny. Big Tech deals are under scrutiny. What's the 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.360 status of the deal? What have your conversations with regulators 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.800 been like? You know, I kind of come at this 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.080 that big deals should be scrutinized right. I think that's 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.800 the role of regulators, why they're in place. I feel 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.040 good about the progress that we've been making, but I 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.640 go into the process uh supportive of people who maybe 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.040 aren't as close to the gaming industry and what the 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:43.520 dynamics are asking good hard questions about okay, what is 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.800 our intent? What does this mean? If you play it 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.200 out over five years. Is this constricting a market? Is 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.880 it growing a market and just being transparent about the 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.200 things that we care about. We care about choice. We 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:57.680 care about people being able to play where they want, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.600 when they want. Clouds an important part of that. I 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.920 think about business model diversity and we brought in subscriptions 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.880 to a retail model. You have free to play games 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.280 that do really well. We think the multitude of business 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.640 models is an important consideration as well. So sitting down 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.400 with regulators and having discussions about our long term vision 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.800 of there are three billion people who play video games 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:20.440 on the planet, which is crazy. It's like half the 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.280 world's population nearly plays video games and we want games 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.320 that can reach all of those people under an economic model. 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.880 So you're confident the deal is going to happen. I've 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.000 never done a seventy billion dollar deal, so I don't 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.720 know what my confidence means. I will say the discussions 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.640 that we've been had, that we've been having seemed positive 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.400 and we're actively engaged in the conversations, trying to be 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.040 transparent about what our motivations are, but I feel good 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.880 about it. Microsoft had its time in the antitrust spotlight. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:53.120 Now the spotlights on Google and Meta and apple and Amazon. 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:57.280 How is it that Microsoft is skirted the spotlight? Your 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:03.000 competitors might say it's unfair. Well, I think your point 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.400 about US having grown through that time, I might call 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.640 that the adolescent ears for us, as we were kind 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.480 of learning. I think it's an important consideration that we 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:14.960 did learn a lot as a company through that time 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.080 and what it meant, and I think that sticks with 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.960 us today. And I think the transparency of our business model, 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.560 our longevity in the market grown through our adolescent ears 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.480 and the stuff that we learned has been important and 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.280 how we show up, and I also know the team 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.960 does a lot of work to continue to share our 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:36.080 views on things and as a company and make sure 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.440 that we're public about what we stand for. You've been 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.680 a really big advocate of cross platform play and this 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:44.320 idea that Gamer should be allowed to play whatever games 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.800 they want on whatever platform they want. Why is that 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.360 so important to you? I think about the industry growing 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.600 and if I think about maybe you happen in your 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.920 household to buy an xbox and I buy a playstation 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.600 and our kids want to play together and they can't 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:02.680 because we bought the wrong piece of plastic to plug 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.400 into our television. It just seems that these artificial constraints 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.640 that the industry might put up for near term kind 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.600 of business dynamics in the long run. If you take 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.160 a business that is at three billion people, growing to 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.000 four billion people over the next decade, and saying how 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.440 do we continue to grow this business, reducing friction for 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.080 our customers has, as an industry, has to be at 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.640 the top. If I think about reducing friction, safe and secure, 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.560 so when our players are online they have the experience 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:33.600 that they should have and they want to have that. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.520 Parents feel in control of what the of the experience 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.760 their children are having. So how far does this go? 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.120 Does this mean that activision games that call of duty 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.600 you'll be able to play on any platform and perpetuity? Yeah, 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.000 we've we've made the public commitment that we want call 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.680 of duties specifically to be playable on other platforms the 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:57.000 platforms it's on today. Most people specifically asked about playstation forever. Forever. 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.400 I don't like, I don't know what that means in forever, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:02.600 like when you think about how long, and it's not 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.000 for any kind of nefarious business reason, it's just like 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.000 what do we even platforms mean ten years ago, like 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:09.360 I think the definition of some of these things might 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.440 change over time, but our expectation is we want more 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.199 people to play and if you look at our history 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.720 through the acquisitions that we've done, when we bought minecraft, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.879 we increase the platforms it was available on. We didn't 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:24.000 decrease it. We added it to the switch and brought 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.000 it to other places. The other minecraft games that we've launched, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.760 minecraft dungeons, minecraft legends, have come to the switch and 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.320 playstation like. When we have games that are on other platforms, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.399 even kind of near term competitive platforms, we want to 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:39.600 support those platforms and continue to grow the user base 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.680 there and make those customers happy. We we haven't pulled 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.480 games away from players that are playing those games today. 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.680 And what about the reverse? Will Sony exclusives be available 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:54.320 on Xbox? Not a question for like that I can answer. Um, 0:17:54.480 --> 0:18:00.439 I do think over time the idea of exclusive of 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.800 a game for one device is something that we're just 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:06.399 going to see less and less of. I mean we 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.000 made the decision a few years ago that when we 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.639 launch any of our xbox console games, they're available on 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.000 the same date on on windows, and that was kind 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.320 of blasphemous at the time of what. No, these games 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:20.199 are supposed to be the things that cause people to 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.400 have to go buy an xbox. Why would you make 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.560 them available on windows at the same time? In fact, 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.080 we went so far that if you bought the xbox version, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.600 you got the PC version as part of the entitlement, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:31.560 like you could. You could play the game on both 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.800 platforms and then cross play and cross save and things 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.159 that you were talking about Um and I think the 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:37.719 industry and more and more is going to go in 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.959 that direction and I think it leads to better games, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.600 because if the business is growing and there's more users, 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:45.680 creators will take more risk, they'll try new, unique things. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.200 So I know you're working with Sony on some things 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.159 for the benefit of gamers. Can you talk to us 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:52.959 about that a little bit? Where do you think your 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.040 relationship with Sony will be in a number of years, 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:01.040 like what are the hard things to work through and where? where? 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.120 Where do you draw a line? Where do they draw 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:07.040 a line? I think in the in the near term, 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.080 we're a big publisher on their platform. When you think 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.480 about minecraft and games that we have, death loop and 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.119 ghost wire, where Games are studio shipped that because of 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.680 contractual things, were only on playstation when we launched. So 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.719 we have we have a pretty big publishing footprint on 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:25.640 playstation as well as Nintendo, which means we have good 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.920 relationships with those platforms because we're they're a big part 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.439 of our business and we're a big part of their business. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.720 I think our long term ambition of where we see 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.240 this industry growing is also shared. When you think about 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.480 people should be able to play games in more places, 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.520 things like accessibility, things like safety, we find a lot 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.440 of common ground. I think the area where things get 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.760 stuck a little bit it's in the kind of near 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:54.119 mid term competition. If somebody walks into a store and 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.520 they have one bill, they're probably going to walk out 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.680 with either and they want to gaming console. They're either 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.199 going to walk out with a switch, which is what 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:04.560 most people buy, or they're gonna walk out with a 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.240 playstation five, or they're gonna walk out with an xbox, 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.560 or maybe somebody will go buy gaming a windows PC. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.679 But in that world of somebody's got to make a 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.560 decision for one platform over another in the beginning. Um, 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:18.520 that is where I think we we get stuck in 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.360 some of the kind of near term competition. I don't 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:22.879 think that's bad. It's just the dynamic of each of 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.600 us pushing each other Um to build the best product 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.240 for our customers. Now, while you've been working to make 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.919 the gaming industry more collaborative, the gaming industry has historically 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.880 been tough for women, for diverse voices. When you look 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.320 back on game or gate, do you think you did enough? 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.520 Do you think Microsoft did enough? I can always look 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.200 back at any incident for me and think about things that, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:46.040 in hindsight, I should have done more, I should have 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:50.200 done better. It's just Um. I'm I'm proud of how 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.600 our team evolves, how our leadership team evolves, how we 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.199 do I mean there are mistakes that happened on our 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.280 own teams all the time and our our teams learned 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.920