The next-generation Xbox has officially received the codename Project Helix from Microsoft, and in a recent Q&A, CEO Satya Nadella shared broad goals for where Microsoft wants to take the brand.
In addition to confirming a rejuvenated focus on the Xbox brand, Microsoft has also outlined an interesting objective for its upcoming hardware. According to the CEO, the company intends to specifically target doomscrolling in the coming years.
In a report shared by Windows Central, it was noted that Satya Nadella confirmed his intentions to back Xbox and gaming in the long run.
The CEO believes that the world needs to engage in more active hobbies and activities like games. He then shifted his statement to doomscrolling, admitting how this activity takes up a huge chunk of everyone’s life today.
Satya Nadella believes the world would be better off moving away from this trend of “hijacking attention.” Instead, the executive hopes to see more interest going toward activities like games and coding, things that he believes immerse people in a way unlike anything else.
As the Microsoft CEO puts it, attention is finite, and Microsoft wants to earn the permission of everyone’s attention through Xbox Project Helix.
“Gaming is an active engagement. It’s not passive scrolling on things, and so on. I want us to be the ones to bring back that active engagement. The level of hijacking of our attention that’s going on… I want us to reverse that.” -Satya Nadella
Interestingly, this is not the first time Microsoft has declared its intentions to fight over modern attention spans. In the past, Xbox declared that it would compete against the likes of TikTok, and Satya Nadella’s latest statement further drives this point home.
Of course, because of how popular social media and smartphones have become today, this is easier said than done. Xbox is already far behind gaming competition like PlayStation and Nintendo, so it will be even more challenging for the brand to compete with social media trends like doomscrolling.
