This Week In The Business: Microsoft’s Head In The Cloud

“The premium living room experience today is on Xbox One X, and we hope to continue that for years to come. But when you think about how we are going to broaden our business, we need to think beyond console to be successful.” – Microsoft GM of gaming cloud Kevin Gammill says the company isn’t leaving the console business behind; it just wants all the other businesses, too.

Image: Ninja Theory

QUOTE | “Long-session mobile games that require a player’s constant attention for 10 to 20-minutes have not been as successful in North America as they are in other markets, and the Switch might be the perfect home for them.” – EEDAR senior analyst Matt Diener makes the case for which mobile games should find their way to the Nintendo Switch.

QUOTE | “PQube works closely with all age ratings bodies and platform holders through this process. In an instance where a release is not possible, PQube respectfully complies with the guidelines of a platform holder and the laws of any given territory.” – Niche publisher PQube explains that it will not be releasing Omega Labyrinth Z in the UK after the dungeon crawler was denied classification by the UK Video Standards Council because it “clearly promotes the sexualisation of children via the sexual interaction between the game player and the female characters.” It is the first game to be refused classification since Manhunt 2.

QUOTE | “Don’t get hammered until 6am – save that to the end of the show.” – Wired Productions MD Leo Zullo gives developers some key advice on pitching their projects to publishers at next week’s Game Developers Conference.

QUOTE | “If you have the talent and if you have the know-how, I think the opportunities for success are much greater today than at any point in the history of the industry.” – Former SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton is still bullish on the upside for indie developers, which explains why he put together a fund to invest in them.

QUOTE | “The games industry has a great artistic, cultural and intellectual responsibility nowadays. Although there are some masterpieces that entertain by telling us something non-trivial, they are still few compared to the number of games that come out every month.” – Lunar Great Wall CEO Marco Ponte explains the gap his company is trying to fill with titles like the upcoming Another Sight.

STAT | 1 – Number of gender discrimination complaints filed by women at Microsoft that the company considered well-founded. The company is being sued for “systemic and pervasive discrimination” against its female employees.

QUOTE | “No one wants to see Félix succeed more than we do, and we believe he has a bright future ahead of him.” – Dallas Fuel owner Mike Rufail, after the Overwatch League team released Félix “xQc” Lengyel when the player followed up a January suspension for homophobic remarks with a March suspension for racially disparaging actions.

QUOTE | “After every major shooting in the US, we’ll get trolls who register names [on Kongregate] under the identity of whoever the shooter was, just as a subtle way to bring that presence up. But our community team knows that and makes sure they look for and ban those accounts or force name changes on them so we don’t have that sort of low-level [toxic] behaviour there.” – Kongregate CEO Emily Greer says the company will ensure its new PC game storefront Kartridge has a well-moderated community, unlike Steam.

STAT | 9 – Number of BAFTA gaming categories for which Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was nominated, more than any other title. Horizon: Zero: Dawn was second with eight nominations, and What Remains of Edith Finch received seven.

QUOTE | “Sometimes it just makes sense that certain games are pixel art. There’s been a thought process behind it. What is the game going to look like? Why should we do pixel art, and how? …Sometimes you can tell on some games that it was just pixel art by default because it’s cool or feels kind of retro…” – Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert says the company’s new retro-themed indie publishing label The Arcade Crew doesn’t care what a game’s visual style is, so long as there’s a good reason for it.