Xbox has more than a dozen TV shows and films in development

Microsoft has quite a few TV shows and films in the works, adding more value to the Xbox brand through indirect monetization and exposure to millions of viewers.

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The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly delves into Xbox's 25th anniversary, highlighting upcoming games and multimedia projects that are on the way--and there's a lot of them. It's been revealed to EW that Xbox and Microsoft currently have over a dozen transmedia productions in development across film and TV shows. That's a sizable array of adaptations for a gaming-first organization, and if done correctly, it could help change Microsoft's fortunes on the entertainment battlefield.

The news also comes at an interesting time when Xbox needs as much help as it can get. The group owns a bevy of billion-dollar IPs, including treasured gems like Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, Halo, Doom, Gears of War, and Fallout--most of which either had or are getting adaptations.

There's another big reason why Microsoft is so interested in transmedia, and that involves advertising.

Company CEO Satya Nadella recently made a remark that surprised a lot of gamers; apparently, YouTube does a better job monetizing Xbox than Microsoft does. It wasn't the kind of direct monetization found in games that Nadella was referring to, but indirect monetization via ads.

This implies that Microsoft is more interested in passively monetizing its key franchises. Creating more films and shows also creates more spaces for ads to fill, and that's something that will likely happen as the productions move to various places like Amazon Prime Video. Even the films released in theaters could be monetized with advertisements when they eventually rotate into subscription services.

There are also reports that Microsoft will roll out a free ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming sometime this year, offering indirect monetization in an interactive venue, not unlike NVIDIA's GeForce now service.