The Game of Gaming – Will it Pay Off?

Gaming’s recent rise to mainstream culture has offered media channels a new source of revenue. Esports and competitive gaming has cultivated an immense following — enough for it to be featured on national TV. With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the entertainment industry has been looking for alternatives to fill the void left by typical programming. Consequently, gaming has been a popular replacement for sports and reality television for both providers and viewers alike. Twitch, a live-streaming platform, reached record numbers for hours steamed and concurrent viewership. Games like League of Legends, Rocket League, and Overwatch feature annual competitions to get players electrified as they follow their favorite professional teams. Now, such games have switched to a remote format to continue earning revenue. Along with premiering esports competitions for the last six years, ESPN has currently partnered with the NBA 2K franchise to create the Players Tournament where NBA players go “head-to-head from the comfort of their homes.” Gaming is the future and seems like it is here to stay.

Considering this, console makers — Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo — have also looked for exciting and innovative experiences to offer its players. Console sales are not as hot as they used to be a decade ago with more of the market share now going to mobile games. With the Xbox One, Microsoft positioned it to be a dual-purposed product where one can play their games and more importantly use its entertainment features to either share clips of their gameplay, watch from streaming services like Netflix and YouTube TV, and even continue to watch their existing TV through it. Microsoft’s success with the Xbox One wasn’t picture perfect to say the least with Sony’s PlayStation beating its sales by a significant margin. Nintendo’s relative success with its Switch defied expectations but it was already uniquely positioned to achieve it rather than the other two big console makers.

Instead, Microsoft is seeking to pivot away from its position with the Xbox One and follow a path closer to the Nintendo Switch — making its games playable from anywhere but rather using the cloud. This step has come from Microsoft’s rise with its cloud infrastructure platform Azure and the push towards a subscription-based model with the Xbox Game Pass. While it’s too early to say, Google’s similar strategy with its Stadia platform has been disappointing. However, Microsoft has the power of popular franchise titles like Halo and Forza and its large loyal fanbase that give its next position the ability to succeed. Even Sony has agreed to sign up on Microsoft’s cloud-streaming platform for both to continue paving the way for next-generation gaming.

• “As Traditional Sports Grind to a Halt, Esports Offer a Way to Fill the Void”
• “Switch vs PS4 vs Xbox One Global Lifetime Sales – January 2020 - Sales”
• “The Xbox Series X master plan”