"For 25 years, Xbox has been a monolithic presence in the games industry. It continually challenged PlayStation as the most popular, technologically advanced console, it revolutionalised online gaming, and it brought us multimillion-selling titles such as Halo, Gears of War and Forza Horizon. And for most of that time, Spencer has been the machine's figurehead."
"In charge of Xbox since 2014, Spencer inherited the PR disaster that was the Xbox One announcement. From here, he embraced new innovations such as cloud gaming and subscriptions, turning Xbox into a multi-platform app and ushering in Game Pass, giving owners access to new and legacy games for one monthly fee."
"He also oversaw a period of massive development expansion, buying ZeniMax Media for $7.5bn in 2020 and then Activision Blizzard for an astonishing $69bn in 2023, thereby securing Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush for the empire. But it's also been a period of job cuts across Microsoft's gaming division, as well as waves of studio closures and game cancellations."
Xbox leadership undergoes significant restructuring with Phil Spencer retiring as CEO after a quarter-century leading Microsoft's gaming division. Asha Sharma, previously president of CoreAI, assumes the CEO role, while Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, becomes chief content officer. Spencer, who transformed Xbox since 2014, championed cloud gaming, subscriptions, and Game Pass while orchestrating major acquisitions including ZeniMax Media and Activision Blizzard. However, his tenure also witnessed substantial job cuts, studio closures including Tango Gameworks and The Initiative, and notable game cancellations. Spencer will remain in an advisory capacity through summer before departing.
#xbox-leadership-change #gaming-industry #microsoft-gaming-division #studio-closures #game-pass-strategy
Read at www.theguardian.com
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