Redacted: Achieve Industry Leadership by 2030 (Premium)

Among the many leaked Xbox documents is a fascinating peek at Microsoft's strategy for Xbox over the next ten years. Here are a few thoughts about this vision for the future.

But first, be sure to read Laurent's news coverage of this unprecedented event, which includes details about the 2024 Xbox Series X and Series S refreshes, Xbox Wireless Controller with modular thumbsticks, accelerometer, and haptics, and Microsoft's roadmaps for a truly next-generation console and first-party games.

All of this news came out of a "Highly Confidential" legal filing that includes Phil Spencer's October 11, 2022 testimony transcript from a remote investigative hearing with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) tied to the Activision Blizzard acquisition. In the wake of this event, there were various theories about who might have made the leak and why, but Microsoft has admitted internally that it, not the FTC or some third party, was "unintentionally" responsible for the leak.

"This is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved," Mr. Spencer wrote to employees in a memo today. A carefully worded memo: My first thoughts upon seeing the material was that this could be devastating to the Xbox business, which is already struggling, given how far we are from these product releases, and that some details have surely changed since last October. By stating this explicitly---Spencer knew the memo would immediately leak to the press---he is wisely creating some doubt that the next 15 months are already spoken for. (He used similar damage control language publicly on Twitter, too.)

"I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners’ information very seriously," the memo continues. "This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation. We will learn from what happened and be better going forward. We all put incredible amounts of passion and energy into our work, and this is never how we want that hard work to be shared with the community. That said, there’s so much more to be excited about, and when we’re ready, we’ll share the real plans with our players."

The leak consists of a single legal filing plus dozens of supporting documents, or attachments, which are each given exhibit numbers. According to the transcript, FTC attorney James Weingarten asked Spencer mundane questions about market definitions and so on, and there is literally nothing interesting in this discussion.

But the supporting documents are quite a bit more interesting, and here I will provide an overview of just one of set of them, related to the Xbox strategy going forward. Some key highlights and observations follow.

In an email exchange with Spencer and several others on May 5, 2020, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that "If I look at Apple, Google, and Valve, I see a $30-$40 billion store opportunity. So our opportunity is to address that TAM [total addressable market]?" To t...