Although Microsoft has denied rumours it would spin off the Xbox games division, the company's new CEO has now sent a memo to employees that covers many forward-looking topics but most notably includes a restated commitment to gaming.

After Satya Nadella was appointed head of Microsoft, several analysts and pundits noted his software expertise over hardware and subsequently predicted he wouldn't want anything to do with Xbox. While that might seem silly really, previous reports suggested that Microsoft would have considered selling the Xbox arm if ex-Nokia boss Stephen Elop had taken over as chief executive officer.

The company quickly rebuffed the speculation, but that hasn't stopped Nadella from repeating his commitment and outlining goals for fiscal year 2015 in an employee memo: “The single biggest digital life category, measured in both time and money spent, in a mobile-first world is gaming,” wrote Nadella in the letter, explaining that Microsoft is “fortunate” to have the Xbox brand.

READ: Xbox One review

Microsoft will therefore continue to "vigorously innovate and delight gamers" with Xbox - but mostly because the company also develops many gaming-focused technologies such as core graphics, NUI in Windows, Skype speech recognition, Kinect for Windows camera, etc.

“Bottom line,” Nadella added, “We will continue to innovate and grow our fan base with Xbox while also creating additive business value for Microsoft.”

long live xbox microsoft will continue to delight gamers ceo promises in memo image 3