Xbox boss Phil Spencer made gaming matter to Microsoft

You may have noticed that Xbox boss Phil Spencer is throwing around Microsoft’s hefty wallet. The company has made a number of acquisitions over the last year to shore up its first-party game development. And Spencer explained that he earned the right to do that because Microsoft’s executive team is more interested in gaming than ever.

Spencer was on stage today for a discussion at the Barclays Global Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Conference in San Francisco. And he explained that Microsoft’s gaming division generated more than $10 billion in revenue for the first time during its 2018 fiscal year. Gaming ended that 12-month period as 9.4 percent of Microsoft’s total revenue. And surpassing that threshold turned some heads inside Microsoft.