The post-console future: where Xbox is looking for its next big hit

Microsoft has been in the video game business for over 20 years, but its Xbox console has been the perpetual runner-up. What's more, its huge $70bn merger with Activision Blizzard, a deal that would go a long way towards solving its content problem by buying it Call of Duty and much more, is currently being held up by UK regulators. Looking rather downtrodden on a recent episode of gaming show Xcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that he was "not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo", intimating that the long-running console war between Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation was a losing battle for Microsoft. Instead of touting Xbox sales figures, for the past few years the company has presented its subscription service Game Pass as its metric for success: how many games it has, how many subscribers, how many hours they have played. It is betting on a post-console future, on being able to play games on any screen with the help of cloud servers – a streaming and subscription-centric future that has already transformed music, film and TV.