Xbox boss says Facebook and Amazon are its main gaming competitors

techradar.com:

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has said huge tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are the brand’s main competitors in the gaming industry, as opposed to its traditional rivals.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal about Microsoft’s recently agreed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Spencer described Xbox’s current competitors — including Sony, Nintendo, and Valve — as unlikely to disrupt the industry, but was more concerned that larger tech companies would muscle into the gaming space.

“Nintendo’s not going to do anything that damages gaming in the long run because that’s the business they’re in,” he said. “Sony is the same and I trust them… Valve’s the same way.

“When we look at the other big tech competitors for Microsoft: Google has search and Chrome, Amazon has shopping, Facebook has social, all these large-scale consumer businesses,” he added.

“The discussion we’ve had internally, where those things are important to those other tech companies for how many consumers they reach, gaming can be that for us.”

Spencer goes on to suggest that just as these other, larger tech companies have come to dominate their spaces by providing services across platforms to reach as many consumers as possible, Microsoft could seize the gaming space by setting its sights higher and reaching more players across the industry as a whole.

“I think we do have a unique point of view, which is not about how everything has to run on a single device or platform,” he said.

“That’s been the real turning point for us looking at gaming as a consumer opportunity that could have a similar impact on Microsoft that some of those other scale consumer businesses do for other big tech competitors.”

The idea that Silicon Valley tech giants like Facebook,