Microsoft CEO: “Xbox Live Is the Biggest Gaming Social Network

Mikeha

During Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Briefing 2017 in Seattle, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella talekd about the company’s gaming business.

According to Nadella, gaming is one of the first places where Microsoft brought all of its assets together. Gaming for Microsoft is a much broader thing than just the Xbox business.

Nadella mentioned that Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network, and monetizes far more than any other gaming social network.

http://www.dualshockers.com/microsoft-ceo-xbox-live-biggest-gaming-social-network-talks-connecting-dots-around-gaming/

Mikeha

Straight from the man him self. 

SEANMCAD

yes and in fact what MS SHOULD do is leverage that part of xbox more than anything else.

meaning turn Xbox Live into a service that works anywhere.

for me however, I dont give a fuck about 'community' I play games for the games..full stop

Mikeha

SEANMCAD said:

yes and in fact what MS SHOULD do is leverage that part of xbox more than anything else.

meaning turn Xbox Live into a service that works anywhere.

for me however, I dont give a fuck about 'community' I play games for the games..full stop

Microsoft has done it again. 

SEANMCAD

Recore said:

SEANMCAD said:

yes and in fact what MS SHOULD do is leverage that part of xbox more than anything else.

meaning turn Xbox Live into a service that works anywhere.

for me however, I dont give a fuck about 'community' I play games for the games..full stop

Microsoft has done it again. 

not sure that is accurate.

what I am talking about regarding leveraging (you might want to look up that word) Xbox Live as a service was first suggested (that I am aware of) by Tom Merritt years ago. I dont think MS has yet done it

to be more clear, the idea was to dump Xbox hardware completely, sell it off to amazon or something, but keep xbox live as a service because its the only thing really of value with xbox.

maskedweasel

XBLAAS is a thing already, because XBL is considered a "service"  but they don't charge for XBL gold on PC.

You can do a lot of things without XBL on the console too, including things online with just silver. Some games don't require XBL Gold.  Neither does watching Netflix, etc.  

The real reason to buy into the XBL thing at all is the free games monthly.  Many times they actually have games that are worth more than the cost of membership.

SEANMCAD

Torval said:

XBox live does work cross platform with XB1 and Win10. It's really neat.

Unsurprising that it's the biggest social gaming network. Microsoft has a huge platform they can leverage. Sony does not although their PSN is awesome and works great. Consoles are a social gaming platform. The social aspect of PC gaming is an afterthought, not so on consoles.

the idea several years ago one of which i supported was to dump Xbox hardware, use Xbox Live as a service and invest the money you would have had in hardware to making the service even better. 

more over, have the service work on any platform.

Cleffy

It's a bit of a stretch to call XBox Live the biggest gaming social network. You buy a PC, and you have an XBox Live account. With the current Microsoft products, it is near impossible not to join XBox Live as you are automatically added when creating a Microsoft account.

Markn

SEANMCAD said:

Recore said:

SEANMCAD said:

yes and in fact what MS SHOULD do is leverage that part of xbox more than anything else.

meaning turn Xbox Live into a service that works anywhere.

for me however, I dont give a fuck about 'community' I play games for the games..full stop

Microsoft has done it again. 

not sure that is accurate.

what I am talking about regarding leveraging (you might want to look up that word) Xbox Live as a service was first suggested (that I am aware of) by Tom Merritt years ago. I dont think MS has yet done it

to be more clear, the idea was to dump Xbox hardware completely, sell it off to amazon or something, but keep xbox live as a service because its the only thing really of value with xbox.

You do realize they get a licensing fee for every single new game sold on the xbox right ?  That is where the money is.  It cost a publisher $3-$10 per unit.  The sub fee for XBL is pennies compared to what they got just for call of duty.

Gravarg

The actual number of people that use XBox Live as a social media is probably about 5% of the actual number of accounts they have, since any PC with Windows 10 has an XBox account attached to it...

Phry

Gravarg said:

The actual number of people that use XBox Live as a social media is probably about 5% of the actual number of accounts they have, since any PC with Windows 10 has an XBox account attached to it...

Win10 is apparently installed on over 400 million devices, not all those devices are PC's however, and of those that are PC's not all of them are Gaming PC's, Win 10 currently has somewhere in the region of 15% of the Windows PC install base, compared to around 50% of the Windows install base that Win 7 has, its unlikely that percentage will change very much in the short term (6 months - year) though year on year i would expect it to change by at least 3 or 4 percent in favour of Win10, if anything though i think Microsoft now has to think about creating a new OS, as Win 10 has a few too many negative connotations, particularly in respect of privacy etc, that it comes with its own keylogging software is also something of a contentious issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8_Tc_DnJy0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgKJMsJ-6XU
 
Barnacules Nerdgasm, the guy gets a bit 'wordy' but given his past employment history, informative all the same.
But back to Windows 11, a new OS that gives back privacy without having to, as in the case of Win 10, buy the Win10 Pro edition in order to have the ability to turn the 'telemetry' off, something that can't be done on the base version of Win 10, then just maybe, they can persuade the Win7 holdouts that MS has something more 'user friendly' rather than exploitative.
Back, again to the XBlive thing, back in i think it was 2013 Steam exceeded XBlives user base, with 60 odd million users, in 2015 the Steam user base had increased to over 120 million, and those are actual gaming PC's, but what is significant is that Steam is multi platform, it doesn't matter what version of Windows you have, whereas XBlive only really works on Win10 PC's (in addition to XB1's of course) and on Win10 the XBLive feature is largely ignored, its why when it comes to games that you get via not just the Windows Store, but from external sources such as Steam, it has yet to achieve substantial percentage of the player bases of those games, as was seen recently with the Activision Infinite Warfare debacle where MS ended up giving refunds because their servers were pretty much empty, not that the Steam version was all that spectacular, the game was a lemon after all, but at least you could find multiplayer games.

SEANMCAD

Markn said:

You do realize they get a licensing fee for every single new game sold on the xbox right ?  That is where the money is.  It cost a publisher $3-$10 per unit.  The sub fee for XBL is pennies compared to what they got just for call of duty.

yes its a pricing model that is loosing them money in form of opportunity cost.

You know what company makes more money per employee then Microsoft of Apple? take a guess

SEANMCAD

Torval said:

Gravarg said:

The actual number of people that use XBox Live as a social media is probably about 5% of the actual number of accounts they have, since any PC with Windows 10 has an XBox account attached to it...

See you're wrong on a couple levels. An xbox account is tied to a Microsoft account, just like a PS4 account is tied to a Sony Online Entertainment account. You have to create both.

You don't need a Microsoft account to log into Win10 anymore than you need one to log into Win7.

When you log into the Xbox site with your Microsoft account you must complete a couple steps and choose your XBL handle. Now you have a working XBL account.

Consoles have social tools built right in from the get go. Consoles are a social platform, but they're not Facebook. Not every social media thing means "it's like Facebook". When you log into the console you can immediately message or connect with friends or people you've gamed with. You can message and connect with built in voice. You can post screen shots and status messages. Game with multiplayer will manage your social connections using XBL or PSN.

That is why they're social. They're not places people go to talk and post about politics, pics of their family, food, and whatever. Both XBL and PSN work across devices and platforms (desktop browser, mobile, and the console). Both have limited functionality through the browser, but it's there as well. In the case of XBL you can play those multi-platform titles on Win10 as well as the XB1.

its almost as good as Skype or TeamSpeak.

I joke, in some respects yes it is better than Skype or TeamSpeak, in most cases its not  a material enough difference to select one over the other.

That said, MS should leverage that community with more service upgrades and dump hardware. imo

Annwyn

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

laserit

Annwyn said:

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

Steam only deals with PC's

It's the console addition to the equation that makes it bigger than Steam.

SEANMCAD

laserit said:

Annwyn said:

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

Steam only deals with PC's

It's the console addition to the equation that makes it bigger than Steam.

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

laserit

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Annwyn said:

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

Steam only deals with PC's

It's the console addition to the equation that makes it bigger than Steam.

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

How many of those Steam users, use Windows?

I have an Xbox live account and have never actually used the service. How many millions are just like me.

SEANMCAD

laserit said:

SEANMCAD said:

laserit said:

Annwyn said:

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

Steam only deals with PC's

It's the console addition to the equation that makes it bigger than Steam.

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

How many of those Steam users, use Windows?

I have an Xbox live account and have never actually used the service. How many millions are just like me.

I use windows, I dont have an xbox account at least that I am aware of.

The point i was making is that clearly by looking at the numbers I posted its not safe to make a casual assumption like you did. maybe some evidence?

Annwyn

laserit said:

Annwyn said:

"Xbox Live is the biggest gaming social network" ... after Steam...

Steam only deals with PC's

It's the console addition to the equation that makes it bigger than Steam.

Not sure I follow your logic. Looking at the numbers Seanmcad posted, Steam's userbase is almost 3 times the size of Xbox Live's users.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

SEANMCAD

blueturtle13 said:

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

We have far more than 125 million accounts

wow!


Your Evidence:
'We have far more than 125 million accounts'




 My Evidence:


125 million users Steam
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

 48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter 

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

SEANMCAD

blueturtle13 said:

SEANMCAD said:

blueturtle13 said:

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

We have far more than 125 million accounts

wow!


Your Evidence:
'We have far more than 125 million accounts'






 My Evidence:




125 million users Steam
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

 48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter 

You posted an article from 2 years ago. Plus I work for Valve

Its like talking to Donald Turmp can you please stop it?

laserit

SEANMCAD said:

blueturtle13 said:

125 million users is not something to casually assume the number is larger than consoles
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

48 million xbox users
http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter

We have far more than 125 million accounts

wow!


Your Evidence:
'We have far more than 125 million accounts'




 My Evidence:


125 million users Steam
http://kotaku.com/there-are-over-125-million-steam-accounts-1687820875

 48 million xbox users


http://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-live-now-boasts-48-million-active-users-39-million-last-quarter 

"48 million active users"  "accounts" and "active users" are two different things. 

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

SEANMCAD

blueturtle13 said:

I was correcting you kiddo you were wrong again.  Calm down. It happens 

1. today I am calm and clearly my text illustrates that
2. you claim to work at valve
3. you post zero evidence to your claim
4. you suggest because its 2 years ago that is evidence of what exactly? nothing?
5. I am an example of a windows user who does not have an xbox account best I can tell.
6. all evidence i have seen thus far suggest that there are nearly 2 times as many Steam users as Xbox users and nobody has posted jack shit to put those facts into question
7. not sure why people like to live in a world of 'alt facts'