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Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out, Matt Booty Promoted as Microsoft AI Exec Asha Sharma Named New Xbox Boss – EXCLUSIVE - IGN

Big changes are being made at the top of Microsoft's gaming division.
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People who have been calling for Spencer's head for the last few years are about to learn just how much worse it gets. Xbox made some bad calls over the years (betting the farm on gamepass, 80 billion dollar acquisition and more) but ultimately Spencer was a person who cared about games. His replacement is only going to care about money, and the difference will become apparent very soon.
 
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lashman said:
www.ign.com

Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out, Matt Booty Promoted as Microsoft AI Exec Asha Sharma Named New Xbox Boss – EXCLUSIVE - IGN

Big changes are being made at the top of Microsoft's gaming division.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
Click to expand...
  • (Not defending an exec, just sharing facts.) Phil has been with Xbox from the start. Helped OG Xbox and X360 expand in other regions outside US. Took charge after the disastrous Don Merrick era. Opened the ecosystem for Xbox ( Eg. advocating for crossplay), almost too much. Helped with ID@Xbox program, Adaptive Controller, Backwards Compatibility and Game Pass. Pushed for Minecraft to become the global phenomenon. Also led gobbling of studios, leading to this mess. I will fault him fumbling Xbox brand post-2020. But, I won't fault him for rest of the things.
  • Matty Booty needs more scrutiny. Midway closed under his leadership. After he headed Microsoft Game Studios, all interesting games that came from 360 Era suddenly stopped. Now guy got a golden parachute to being an AI exec (currently possibly one of the highest paying roles on earth)
  • Idk what Sarah Bond did. Current Xbox is either by Phil + Booty decisions running course or Bond making it worse. Her resignation doesn't inspire confidence either.
 
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AHA-Lambda said:
Following my post earlier about Sony, was thinking should put my money where my mouth is and pick up the off kilter games of theirs from years ago I’ve not played

Sackboy, SOTC, Gravity Rush

And then I see the PS3 section with games like Puppeteer and Rain.
Fuck sake Sony, the PS3 legacy is so tarnished and it’s their own fault

Jesus Christ that is grim watching. Like we all know things are tough but all of it laid out like this fuck it’s bad
Click to expand...

Nice to see someone mention Rain. Puppeteer despite being very underrated still gets mentioned but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who played Rain.
 
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Seems like they did their best when following after SEGA and when that ran its course they shat the bed. Whatever happens is a direct follow up of the current seemingly unfixable situation that may as well be spelling the end of Xbox, at least in the form previous followers cared, even if the name persists in other bs...
 
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Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
 
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Sobatronix said:
Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
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Phil is also the one who was like "hey lets pivot to doing stuff on PC" and then completely stopped paying attention to that until there were Windows handhelds he could take on business trips.
 
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Sobatronix said:
Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
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Guy also helped with European expansions of OG Xbox and X360. No one could've handled Don Merrick's disaster, yet he took charge some how. Guy also pushed for accessibility with Adaptive Controller and push for crossplay.

You should definitely fault him for post-2020 Xbox mess. But you can't ignore the other stuff.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Matt Booty and Bond deserve more scrutiny.
 
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Phil Spencer can eat shit. Just a series of baffling decisions and massive layoffs, that, as the head of Xbox, he's directly responsible and accountable for.

Xbox might die for sure now, though. But who gives a shit, they can burn until Microslop stops being a genocide collaborator (so they will burn for eternity it seems).
 
It's probably an unpopular opinion but I couldn't care less about any of the console manufacturers woes. The drama is fun, don't get me wrong, but if they all went away tomorrow I wouldn't lose a single second of sleep.
The industry doesn't need them like it did before, it's not 2005 anymore. Big publishers had their place and use in the past, nowadays?... I have serious doubts about their overall utility.
 
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Todd Howard is right there. He is far more deserving of leading Xbox than whoever these other people are.

I don't really see it getting worse tho. They can't sell hardware for shit and they priced everyone out of gamepass ruining a good thing.

They've been at rock bottom for years now so only way they can go is up.

The only splash they can make going forward is Bethesda. Make ES6 a new hardware launch title and push out some cheap Xbox to as many people as you can. But cheap seems to no longer be an option for this industry so yea...they will probably just be third party only soon and kill hardware all together.
 
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Dinjoralo said:
Phil is also the one who was like "hey lets pivot to doing stuff on PC" and then completely stopped paying attention to that until there were Windows handhelds he could take on business trips.
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We've gotten so used to getting first party console games on PC that we've forgotten what a pivotal moment it was when Xbox did it for the first time about a decade ago. They initially tried to set up their own distribution with the Windows store and kept at it for about 3-4 years but it never took off because of the UWP disaster (which was also not their fault). And then they realized that Steam was where the audience was and also went ahead with simultaneous releases. Phil figured out that PC was the way to go to grow their businesss a good few years before it finally dawned upon Sony. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that they stopped paying attention?
 
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