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From left, Tim Stewart, Chief Financial Officer of Xbox at Microsoft; Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Games; and Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood arrive in court in San Francisco on June 29, 2023.
David Paul Morris | bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft The chief financial officer advised employees not to “build a golden toilet” during the 2018 meeting, according to emails that surfaced during federal court hearings last month regarding the software maker’s scheme. Activision Blizzard acquisition.
Sarcasm may warrant an allegation on social media in 2016 (Proven wrong by Snopes) that former President Donald Trump owned a solid gold toilet. Rapper MC Hammer It said It was done too. Whatever its inspiration, the reference seems to highlight the potential for high-value tech companies to build products simply because they can, ignoring the possibility that it may not resonate with many customers.
“Amy’s words from the meeting in the fall still ring in my ears — ‘Don’t build a golden toilet,’” Vice President Kathryn Gluckstein wrote in a February 2019 email to Phil Spencer, chief executive of games at Microsoft. Gluckstein works on advertising and a game-based streaming service. to the cloud formerly known as xCloud.
A Microsoft spokesman declined to disclose Hood’s comments.
Right before hanging up the toilet, Gluckstein mentioned Microsoft’s plans to test xCloud with consumers. She noted that she wasn’t clear about what Microsoft was trying to determine through testing and where the feature fit into Xbox’s go-to-market strategy.
“I’ve made this mistake in far too many products, and I’m sure everyone else has too, when we built features before we answered basic questions,” Gluckstein writes.
Spencer wrote in response that mobile gamers don’t necessarily want to play a hardcore game like Halo on their phone while using an Xbox controller over Bluetooth.
“This is the golden seat construction[for our existing TAM],” Spencer wrote. “It doesn’t help us grow.”
Perhaps Microsoft should stop what it was doing and start picking up intellectual property rights and releasing mobile games, Spencer added, or it might acquire a mobile game publisher like Nexon.
When Glucketine responded, I wondered what lesser forms of internal development Microsoft could explore.
“What amazes me is that we’re trying to do one perfect experiment when we probably should be doing several ‘toilet casserole’ (smaller scale, more rambunctious) experiments,” Gluckstein writes. “Would this be a better way to go than ‘guessing’. Are we pushing ourselves to find out the customer why fast enough?”
Microsoft moved forward with xCloud beta testing in late 2019. But over the course of five days of court hearings in June, Microsoft executives testified that xCloud, now known as Xbox Cloud Gaming, had failed to become a viable alternative to PCs or consoles. Xbox controller from Microsoft, where games can be played locally. earlier this year Google Close Stadia, it takes into account game broadcasts.
Microsoft hasn’t given up on cloud gaming. But it was also co-opted for growth through deal-making. Last year, the company announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard, the hit Candy Crush Saga, for $68.7 billion. A federal judge will decide whether Microsoft can close the deal, despite objections from the Federal Trade Commission. British regulators also tried to prevent it.
Read emails from Spencer and Gluckstein regarding Hood’s “golden toilet” comments below.
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