As of late, Microsoft has been showing an increasing amount of interest in blockchain technology. It now seems that the company is rolling out a blockchain enabled service that will be compatible with its widely popular Xbox console.

Xbox and Blockchain Come Together

On paper, there do not seem to be any use cases for blockchain technology as far as the Xbox console is concerned. Even so, Microsoft has partnered with Ernst & Young to explore this option moving forward. Both companies want to change the way video game developers and publishers can earn money online. 

By using blockchain, the new product serves as a content rights and royalties platform. This will allow Microsoft and its partners to process a lot more transactions in a shorter period of time. Any publisher active in gaming, music, television, or other forms of entertainment can benefit from this new solution. Users buying content through this new platform will result in royalties being recorded on the blockchain. As such, an immutable record is created based on previously agreed upon terms and conditions.

So What’s Different Here?

Compared to the current model of royalty distribution, this new system can offer many advantages. Settling payments can take up to 45 days under the current system. For both publishers and content creators, that situation is completely unacceptable. Processing such payments in a distributed and automated fashion is a far more preferable solution for all involved parties. Moreover, the blockchain system reduces transaction costs quite significantly. It is believed that by using this new service, publishers will see a reduction in their incurred costs by up to 99%.

Also worth mentioning is that the entire ecosystem has been built on top of the Quorum blockchain and runs using Microsoft’s Azure Cloud service. If successful, it will become part of other Microsoft services, including Bing and the Azure marketplace. During the initial stages, the plan of action revolves around taking the software to larger publishers and game developers. Over time, a trickle-down effect is expected to be established.

Final Thoughts

It is rather interesting to see Microsoft, as well as many established video game publishers, pay attention to blockchain technology. Whether or not this new system can disrupt the publishing industry remains to be determined but having a gaming giant such as Ubisoft on-board, provides this project with even better credibility.