Microsoft could be the sneakiest company in America. Not only did they completely slip through the fingers of regulators during 2020's Big Tech antitrust hearings, but they've also climbed their way to be the second most valuable company in the world at an over $2.5 trillion market cap during a time when most everyday consumers forget they exist. Hearing about Microsoft nowadays is like looking back at the pimples in your middle school yearbook photos: you always knew they were there, but you didn't realize they were THAT big.
And unsurprisingly, Microsoft is joining its Big Tech brethren in designing its own processors. The early reports say these chips will be used in its Surface devices and servers, presumably for its Azure service. However, I do wonder sometimes whether or not there's an opportunity for Microsoft to takeover the market for upper mid-tier PC gaming chips too. PCs still absolutely dominate the gaming market, and Apple doesn't appear to be in any rush to challenge that, giving Microsoft a clear gateway into this space. Intel has completely dropped the baton in the last five years with making advanced high-performance chips. Microsoft's Xbox uses an AMD processor, but I have to imagine if an offshoot of the Xbox team had to use their skillset to begin designing gaming processors in-house, it would be possible. And most gamers plug their computers in while gaming, so the profile of a high-performance gaming chip has to be at least tangentially similar to the server chips Microsoft is already developing since both optimize for pure performance rather than power efficiency.
This is a loose theory at best, but imagine if Microsoft took gaming chip design in-house and made a Surface to gamers what the new M1 Max MacBook Pros are for creatives. I would love to see Microsoft try it, and quite frankly they have plenty of money in the bank, so why not?
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