It’s a rough world out there for videogames–and one Microsoft VP says that his company’s games aren’t just having to fight off competition from Sony and Nintendo.
At today’s London Games Conference, Phil Harrison—yes, the same Phil Harrison who used to work for rival Sony Computer Entertainment—gave his first public address as corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division in Europe.
“We’re no longer just competing with the traditional console companies,” said Harrison, “but our competitive landscape includes the likes of Google, the likes of Amazon, it includes obviously the likes of Apple.”
Harrison noted that Microsoft has become more of a multiplatform games studio, with projects and games being developed on the Xbox 360, the company’s new SmartGlass efforts, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Surface.
One question that comes up, of course, is what the results of those efforts will be. For Nintendo and Sony, simply having two major platforms to support—home console and handheld—hasn’t always been easy. Microsoft’s own first-party efforts haven’t been numerous on the Xbox 360, so one wonders if the company will need to beef up its internal studios to really tackle the array of platforms they’ve now set their focus on.
Source: GamesIndustry
