Microsoft looking to sell off Xbox?

Could Microsoft be looking to separate itself from the world of console gaming by selling off the Xbox?

During an interview of Fox Business this week, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, while deferring often to new company CEO Satya Nadella, stated that he would “absolutely” support spinning off the Xbox division of the company if Nadella decides to take that course of action.

“He’s re-examining all the things,” Gates said of Nadella.  “He’s already made some really good changes. It’s exciting to have young blood, new thinking.”

“We’re taking PC gaming, Windows gaming and Xbox gaming and bringing those a lot closer together”

Microsoft has been under pressure for some time to sell off it’s gaming, and Bing search, units due to concerns from those within that the two divisions aren’t generating enough profit for the company. Even the company’s co-founder Paul Allen suggested it may be time to dump the Xbox.

“We’re taking PC gaming, Windows gaming and Xbox gaming and bringing those a lot closer together,” Gates told the network. “So I’m sure Satya and the team will look at that and it’s up to them. We’re going to have an overall gaming strategy, so it’s not as obvious as you might think.”

This support on a potential sell off could lead Nadella to feel even more pressure from investors to get rid of the gaming unit. However, despite those comments, Microsoft’s head of communications, Frank X. Shaw, took to Twitter to settle down speculation of an Xbox spin off.

In addition to talk of selling off the Xbox unit, Microsoft has also felt pressure to dump it’s search engine Bing due to the lack of overall success. Unfortunately for those who want that to happen, it appears that Bing is in the company’s long-term plans.

“The Bing technology has been the key to us learning how to do large scale data centers,” said Gates. “I see [Bing] as a pretty fundamental technology for the company, even for its Office business, it’s a very, very core business … We’re thinking about ‘are there pieces that are separable,’ but for our basic research, including the stuff that goes into Bing, I can’t see that making sense to break it off.”

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