Xbox boss discusses VR and learning from GFW Live's mistakes

How do you feel Xbox is doing so far, as a start to 2016. We look at the number of people that are playing on Xbox Live. And we look at the success our partners are having with their games on our platform. We look at what is happening in first party. It's really a great time at Xbox. And I'd say the team Now really have a forward looking vision of what where we wanna take gaming with XBox. Including what we're doing on Windows 10 and on console. And it's nice to now to be able to articulate that vision. Get reactions, as we always do When we announce news. But I think there is just a lot of energy in the team and with our partners right now, which is a lot of fun. And talking about that integration with Windows 10. You had a lot of comments about the universal system You're putting together with Xbox and PC. Could your briefly describe what your vision is for that. With the universal Windows platform you have these universal applications that can run on multiple devices. And we've said from the beginning that you see games now running on a breadth of devices down from phone to the highest end games at 4K 60 frames per second. And that's for Windows and Xbox developing a platform that allows those game developers to reach the largest audience of people with the games that they wanna deliver. It's critical to both our long term Success and of the ecosystem. You did mention that you don't like the comparisons made to games for windows live, or those are comparisons that are always going to be made no matter what, those are things that are in the past. Yeah, I don't know that it's I don't like them, I understand them. And it's something we think a lot about when we make commitments on things when we It's in, I am not docking responsibility for games for windows live but I wasn't in the role, I mean now, so you know I understand games windows live is part of the history of Microsoft in gaming for pc gamers and we absolutely have a responsibility to answer the concern of the people that bet on us there. And the outcome and it It's front and center. So it's not that I don't like the questions about it. I understand the skepticism that maybe people create. And I just wanna be able to stand up and say that we're very, very committed as a company to ensuring that gaming on Windows 10 is a great experience. [SOUND] If you think about something like even our launch promotion around Quantum Break, where if you buy it on Xbox Pre-ordered on Xbox you get the Windows 10 version. It's really only possible for us to do those kinds of programs when we're on both sides of the transaction. Both the Xbox side and the Windows 10 side. So us having our own gaming Score, and the features around that. It's really about the features we wanna be able to bring to that ecosystem, but it's not to preclude anybody else from having success there as well. 100% I view Valve's success on Windows as critical to Windows' success in gaming. [NOISE] What about the XBox. Gamer four who wants to get into virtual reality. Yeah, it's a great question. And our bet on VR right now is that an open platform for innovation is just the best place for something that's this early in its incubation. We don't, you can say Minecraft will be the killer app, nobody's bought a copy of Minecraft for VR yet, right. I mean there's some mods out there and stuff but We're still early in all of these devices. And taking that to a closed ecosystem, I think is, to me, is just too early. Doesn't mean that it doesn't belong in console. And I'm not saying that other, like I honestly I wish Sony, I hope Sony has success with what they're trying to do, because I think it's good for our industry as innovations like VR take off. But for me and where we are with Xbox, my bet Is that putting the development tools in the hands of literally millions of people who can go on Windows and start building their own VR experiences is likely to lead to faster content innovation than a close ecosystem would. So we're supporting Valve. We're supporting Oculus. We wanna make sure Windows 10 is a great place for those developers that wanna build. Those early ideas around what might make the killer app for VR. So, you called this the biggest year for, last year, the biggest year for Xbox and Microsoft, and of course now this is the biggest [CROSSTALK] The biggest [UNKNOWN]. Are we gonna know if this is the biggest year yet for Xbox or do we have to wait until E3 to know this overall 2016 is gonna be the biggest year for gaming. The thing that I see in 2016 for the industry is the quality bar, I don't think, has ever been higher. When you look at games that are coming out and the ideas that people are trying to push. We have more indie developers than we've ever seen on our platform, trying to do some of the craziest things with games, which I love, right So I think 2016 will be a continuation of, I don't know if I'd say the greatest game until someone writes it on a slide somewhere, but I think about more just the health of the industry and the health of the platform. Got more people playing on Live, playing more games than we've ever seen. Sony's having great success. It sounds like Nintendo is gonna have a very cool announcement at E3, I don't know anything about it. But it sounds like just yet another great year for gaming across so many different devices, which is fantastic. [MUSIC]