Spencer went on to say that at E3 Microsoft will talk about the "next wave of big hits" that will come, and that Microsoft will continue to invest in first party to accelerate the cycle leading to the growth of Xbox live.

Microsoft held a financial analyst briefing at build this week, of the many topics covered during the briefing Xbox was one of the key ones. Phil Spencer held a presentation on the Xbox business and gaming as a whole for Microsoft, while Satya Nadella CEO talked about what Xbox and gaming as a whole meant to Microsoft including the future. While CFO Amy Hood talked about the profitability and future growing profitability of Microsoft's gaming business.First Amy Hood started of by stating that Xbox is a "critical" asset for the future of Microsoft.This graph shows the growth expected in total XBL MAU through 2017 into 2018, it also demonstrates the relation between XBL MAU and users engaging beyond their console. Hood explained that Xbox is a multi billion dollar business that is profitable and is growing in profitability that Microsoft is "already able to compete very effectively in", this is a building ground for further growth through business models like subscriptions (Gamepass), broadcasting (Beam) and more.Satya Nadella started by saying that investors were looking at the Xbox business the wrong way ”Most of you view gaming as ‘Microsoft has ...an Xbox business,' I think you understand the console economics. But it's a much broader thing for us." Nadella said that Xbox live is the biggest gaming social network, and monetizes far more than any other gaming social network.This presentation slide brought up by Nadella during the briefing is to describe what he calls "connect the dots around gaming" According to Nadella this approach brings more revenue per customer than the old way of simply selling a customer a Xbox. This approach is due to Nadella's process of building connections between Microsoft's wider range of products. Nadella brings up examples of Xbox live originally being seen as a online subscription service now being broadened into a social network between Xbox and Windows 10, cross play between both platforms and Beam.Now Spencer's part of the presentation, according to Spencer gamers enter the market through many devices not just console. That consoles are purchsed to access great content which Microsoft believes brings customers into the cycle, that is why they invest in "great first party content."This attracts more users to Microsoft's social network which in turn builds loyalty. This is were people find and meet their digital friends and keep connected with them. The result of this is it drives commerce which leads to a cycle that is demonstrated in the slide above. A developer creates content for the platform which in turn attracts more users to the social network which results in the cycle beginning over again and repeating.Spencer makes note that investing in first party content is what starts this cycle into new areas of growth, like Beam which allows for new forms of monetization or avatars were avatar items can be sold. Microsoft sees the way to drive revenue is through monetization in the network of which Xbox live is the core.Spencer went on to talk about the "Metaverse", describing a scenario were the Xbox live social network was a physical space. That upon logging into the network you would walk into a room were you could interact with friends through their avatars directly. This image was brought up during the build conference relating to VR/AR which strongly resembles what Phil was describing.Spencer finished his presentation by stating that the gaming business is currently riding the same secular transition and digitization that can be seen in every other business. With Xbox live and Microsofts first parties ability to reach customers across many devices as a strong draw in the future. A lot of already known info was also reiterated during the presentation.Souces: source 1 If you are looking for other info relating to Xbox at build then here are some other threads:If you would like to watch the briefing: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/events/FY-2017/fam-fy-2017.aspx?EventID=181160 Leaked Investor Documents: Internal Microsoft research on xbox users More info and graphs at link: