XboxHead Phil Spencer once admitted that one of the only ways the company could succeed in mobile gaming would be to shut down its console division and start a mobile company inside Microsoft. A record of this unconventional proposal was one of manybombshells from Microsoft’s ongoing legal battle with the FTCover its Activision Blizzard acquisition.
While the public discourse surrounding the case has so far been largely focused on the possibility ofCall of Dutybecoming an Xbox exclusive, Microsoft’s attorneys repeatedly argued that the $68.7 billion deal is primarily mobile-motivated. The confidential documents unsealed during the five-day hearing in front of a San Francisco federal court in June mostly substantiated those claims, not least because they revealed thatMicrosoft even tried buying one of the largest mobile developers on the planetimmediately before setting its sights on Activision Blizzard in early 2022.
RELATED:Xbox Exec Labels Redfall Backlash as Tough ‘Love’
But the company’s mobile ambitions started brewing years beforehand, according to a February 2019 email exchange between Spencer and Xbox Cloud Gaming Head of Product Catherine Gluckstein. Their correspondence that surfaced during the trial saw Spencer admit that Microsoft had “no strategy to win organically in mobile gaming.” Elaborating on that point, theXboxboss said that the company could only hope to become a serious player in this industry segment if it shuts down its entire console division and reinvests its budget into starting an in-house mobile business.
The context of the email suggests Spencer’s remark wasn’t intended as a serious proposal, but merely a way to illustrate how aggressive acquisitions are Microsoft’s only feasible growth options in the mobile gaming space. Some two years later, the company started negotiating over a potential purchase of Zynga, but ultimately discarded that idea. Spencer recently testified that the talks were abandoned after Microsoft decided it needed to acquire an even larger company than Zynga in order to fuel its mobile gaming ambitions.
Another email exchange that emerged during the trial revealed that the tech giant previously looked into the possibility of buyingPokemon GOdeveloper Niantic, among several other mobile studios. Microsoft eventually decided to pursue Activision Blizzard, largely due to its ownership ofCandy Crushmaker King, as well asthe continued success ofCall of DutyMobile.
And while the company clearly remains adamant to compete on both mobile and console fronts moving forward, its gaming hardware business is still far behind that of its rivals. This was just recently confirmed at the 2023 BIG Festival in Brazil, whereMicrosoft revealed the Xbox Series X/S sales numbers, thus breaking a nearly decade-long silence on those figures.
