Skype Coming To An Xbox 360 Near You
As you may have heard, Microsoft purchased Skype yesterday for $8.5 billion US. This is, according to those who know, an unprecedented amount of money for Microsoft to spend on acquiring another company, and clearly a sign of Skype's clout. While reports are that Microsoft will continue to support Skype on non-Microsoft platforms, the software giant still intends to get its money's worth out of its new telecommunications arm.
In fact, Microsoft will be integrating Skype functionality across many of its brands, including Outlook, Windows Live, and Windows phones, as well as with Xbox Live and...Kinect? The idea of Skype with a Kinect-driven interface is, admittedly, an intriguing one both in terms of in-game connectivity and in terms of generally bringing us closer to a Minority Report-style vision of future tech.
At this time there are no further details to be had, but you can be sure that after dropping over eight billion dollars cash Microsoft is going to make sure we hear about its plans for Skype very, very soon.
I wonder if this means they will chop Sony's PSP deal to support Skype. Seems like it may be a conflict of interest with Xbox and all.
Roeark, Microsoft's press release was very clear that this will not null any existing arrangements that Skype has with non-Microsoft companies. In reading some of the commentaries on this acquisition, a lot of industry analysts are saying it would be suicide for Microsoft to either make Skype a Microsoft-only product, or to start charging for what are now free Skype services. I tend to agree.