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[Neat]

Yeah, I can see how it can easily be mistaken. Could be he lost the weight naturally, but he had that ozempic face in photos and that was a tell-tale sign.

He's also nearing 60 years old. Wrinkles and saggy skin are inevitable.

 

[PlayStaytion]

As I said before, she is charming but very weird to the point its creepy.

She speaks Aaron's language, she'll do just fine. I actually wanted to see the female version of Aaron Greenberg so badly.

 

[MisterXDTV]

The most hilarious thing ever is Xbox fans thanking Spencer on Twitter under his post

He basically burned Xbox to the ground....

LOL

 

[Topher]

He's also nearing 60 years old. Wrinkles and saggy skin are inevitable.

I'm talking about his blotchy skin. He looks better now than he did in that photo

 

[DeepEnigma]

It's impossible to be worse than Phil SpendSir

Microsoft quite literally turned into a 3rd party publisher due to his immense, historical failures

They bought fucking Activision and still didn't move the needle at all. Just a completely irrelevant brand under SpendSirs watch.

She can't fail that bad. It's impossible. She will be better than him.

AI slop is far, far worse.

Careful what you wish for.

 

[//DEVIL//]

Gaming aside, I wish him the best in life. He had an incredible career, and it's time for him to rest and enjoy the remainder of his life. I am 44, and if it's up to me, I'd retire already. There are more important things in life than a job.

Thanks Phill.

 

[GHG]

Nahh no way they are using me as a PR handler and the reason I say that is by what else I have heard over the years, stuff they have never want out there

Edit - I will add that sounds like things may have been heated within castle green and these two were fired

That's the main thing then, because there have been several examples before in the past where they've used timly "leaks" in order to placate their fanbase. Which in itself is insane since IMO things are only worth being excited about once they are concrete.

 

[PaintTinJr]

"As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us."

We like the word "slop" now?

We could read this in multiple ways and the wording sounds very cunning.

Even AI generated asset creation comes from assimilating human handcraft art, so it sounds like so long as the end result - in Xbox's opinion - is that their AI is "innovative technology" and isn't "flooding" - so a stream/deluge would be okay - and isn't "soulless AI slop", it is full steam ahead for Xbox game creators to use it for everything.

So no, they don't like the word slop, unless using it as a differentiator from their "innovative technology" it would seem.

 

[DeepEnigma]

We could read this in multiple ways and the wording sounds very cunning.

Even AI generated asset creation comes from assimilating human handcraft art, so it sounds like so long as the end result - in Xbox's opinion - is that their AI is "innovative technology" and isn't "flooding" - so a stream/deluge would be okay - and isn't "soulless AI slop", it is full steam ahead for Xbox game creators to use it for everything.

So no, they don't like the word slop, unless using it as a differentiator from their "innovative technology" it would seem.

Translated: you're getting AI slop. She was head of Azure AI systems. Once again, you're getting AI neposlop.

 

[Merline]

 

[PaintTinJr]

Translated: you're getting AI slop. She was head of Azure AI systems. Once again, you're getting AI neposlop.

What a master stroke they've had fumbling first party efforts for over a decade.

The source art from their current games - even excluding Craig - is so low grade that feeding it into generative AI will improve the results guaranteed, technically stopping it from being "slop", even if it remains "soulless".

 

[vaibhavpisal]

What really matters though is his performance, and It doesn't help that he was so shit at his previous job/s.

Wasn't he running the xbox studios?

He did decent job I would say.

Some scope for improvement but nothing major.

 

[PropellerEar]

What a shit town hall…

"Yeah, he is the one that convinced me about selling, he is just so aligned to how we want to work he understands and will let us do things our way"


….


Booty: "I want to change the least amount of things possible"

…

"We are worried about MS acquiring us and going after our ideas we may develop even when they do not compete with MS / Double Fine…"

Booty: "Let me be clear if you work on it while working here we own the idea"

Schafer (with the biggest "WTF did I do?" look possible): "but… well… unless they are produced we have always maintained that we do not own their ideas if they, on their own time, work on some side things…"

Booty (reading the room): "Well, we may want to revisit that…"

(Studio is like "WTF?!?")

…

Somehow the editor of the video did not think about reshooting it or cutting the segment somehow or anything. WTF…? Quality control anyone?

Only happy person in that clip is the guy going to Playstation

 

[simpatico]

Has the new CEO had any experience in the gaming side of things at all?

She did ruin Instacart and make Home Depot online shopping worse. So there's that. Certain people fail upward depending on traits that have nothing to do with the job

 

[Alebrije]

Meanwhile at Bethesda

 

[Humdinger]

Translated: you're getting AI slop. She was head of Azure AI systems. Once again, you're getting AI neposlop.

Yeah, and she's politically savvy enough to know that this will be one of the fans' concerns about her taking over. So she has to explicitly say, "Don't worry, it won't be AI slop." [It'll be AI wonderfulness.]

 

[j0hnnix]

She did ruin Instacart and make Home Depot online shopping worse. So there's that. Certain people fail upward depending on traits that have nothing to do with the job

This is concerning, Satya knew why he put her in that position. She is a yes man. Those are the types that succeed in the corporate world.

We could all be wrong but the writing has been on the wall for Xbox brand. Back to the Don M. Kinect era but with AI.

 

[Topher]

She did ruin Instacart and make Home Depot online shopping worse. So there's that. Certain people fail upward depending on traits that have nothing to do with the job

She didn't work for Home Depot. She is on the board.

 

[geary]

She didn't work for Home Depot. She is on the board.

Doesnt matter...It has Home Depot on Linkedin... All that is not working there is her fault.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Yeah, and she's politically savvy enough to know that this will be one of the fans' concerns about her taking over. So she has to explicitly say, "Don't worry, it won't be AI slop." [It'll be AI wonderfulness.]

The finest hand-crafted AI.

 

[Humdinger]

The finest hand-crafted AI.

Yes! Curated!

 

[Tams]

LOL Xbox now led by AI woman who probably thinks Halo is an artisinal shampoo and Forza is a fruit drink.

*Edit* I was half joking, but seems she really is just a flighty career executive bouncing between unrelated companies she deems to be promotions into more prestigious roles. She has legit very likely never touched a console or "core" videogame in her entire life before Nutella started grooming her for the role.

The name says it all. It's nepotism.

They always do this. Every. Single. Time.

 

[spookyfish]

Bond did say she is staying on as an advisor for a little while and that they've been working together for a few weeks on the transition. She could be lying idk.

If I thought she was nothing more than a corporate shill before, can't say I've changed my mind.

"Want a juicy severance? Play ball."

 

[Rocinante618]

btw Asha in Hindi means hope. So that's a good thing? for Xbox.

 

[PaintTinJr]

This is concerning, Satya knew why he put her in that position. She is a yes man. Those are the types that succeed in the corporate world.

We could all be wrong but the writing has been on the wall for Xbox brand. Back to the Don M. Kinect era but with AI.

In Satya's defence he can't sell the cost of Xbox to shareholders under an AI umbrella unless it is credible. Her lack of experience or knowledge of the Xbox console product or games in general doesn't satisfy gamers, but her involvement in Azure AI more than qualifies her as the boss of a Copilot Xbox division to use Xbox as a vehicle to promote and advertise Copilot and normalise its place in Windows as part of DirectX, even if it kills Xbox as a console in the process.

 

[balls of snow]

Probably not for a couple of years. For instance, remember how it took a couple of years before you really felt the difference over at Playstation with the transition from guys like House, Shu, and Layden to Ryan and Hulst's leadership. And it has taken many years before we are feeling the full effects, right about now. So these changes take time to be felt -- years in most cases.

So I expect that things will stay pretty much the same, for the time being. It will be a couple of years before you really begin to feel the effects.

Wont be that long. Clearly Nadella is not happy with xbox and put in a yes (wo)man as Xbox CEO to quickly pivot to whatever he wants.
We will know by what studio gets the axe by next year.

 

[GHG]

With the way he's been getting skinny and looking older faster in the recent year or two I hope Phil isn't quietly battling some sort of cancer or something and didnt want to make a spectacle of it.

Not saying its true, just a thought..

If that were the case then they should and could have let him exit in a far nicer and celebratory way.

Don't underestimate the impact stress can have on the human body, and he will have been under immense unrelenting stress in recent years.

 

[PauloRoberto]

Wont be that long. Clearly Nadella is not happy with xbox and put in a yes (wo)man as Xbox CEO to quickly pivot to whatever he wants.
We will know by what studio gets the axe by next year.

Next year? You are being optimistic...

 

[NickFire]

A data driven gaming outsider could be exactly what MS gaming really needs if you think about it. If she keeps / hires the right people based on legit performance metrics alone, and insists on the same approach for green lighting projects, it could be huge. Silver linings.

 

[GHG]

"Should bring the blade dashboard?"

New CEO can't write a proper sentence. Social media brain.

More likely, AI "brain":



But I'd love to see them bring the blades back just to see all the clowns who attempted to gaslight everyone in to thinking the new UI is superior to the blades do a sudden 180.

 

[Coconutt]

There's no way that comment by the ceo was not written by Ai. Yes we are bringing the biggest Ai shill we have on payroll to run Xbox but dont worry, Ai well definitely not be a focus for xbox.

 

[Alebrije]

What sorcery is doing Matt Booty yo keep growing on Microsoft ...this is the most shoking news.

 

[Nonehxc]

Aaaand she's hit the globe.

Redirect Notice

All around the world people are talking about how this failing upwards marketing woman went on to head MS Gaming Division based on...what, the head she gives?The connections and sympathies she has due to her birth? Her looks?

Except indians. They're calling everyone racist.

But not all of them, a few are throwing 'Bheemta/Bhinta' against her, meaning slumgirl who got this post through...slum slum slum.

It's an indian caste pejorative term which pretty much means 'Dalit/Untouchable' doing Dalit/Untouchable things.

 

[spookyfish]

Sorry if it's been posted, but … yeah. This in addition to "Oh I can't just pick 3 favorite games."

FUCK. Twitter sucks.

 

[Wolzard]

Your mistake (that most here are making) is in thinking that by talking about AI slop she is talking about all and any use of AI. She isn't. She's making a simple point about not using low quality AI outputs in a careless or lazy way, where it degrades the quality of games.

Many, many people in the industry (games and AI alike) use the term and agree with the problem it describes. But they don't see all AI outputs as 'slop', just the aforementioned low quality, poor taste, careless use of it.

AI is, of course, going to be used at Microsoft Studios just like it will eventually become commonplace across the industry. It's just a tool, it's just software. What will matter is how it is used. Nobody expects studios to hire a team of devs who do nothing but model and place trees across a game map anymore, they just use SpeedTree to procedurally generate them at scale. Gamers don't complain about SpeedTree being used and demand hand-crafted trees in games and you'd think that would be because they understand it would be a waste of time to make hundreds or thousands of them manually.

Studios will use AI to help with coding, turning human art into models, speeding up texture production, coming up with lots options for dialogue, doing pre-viz for cutscenes, working through lots of potential level designs, ideating art styles and many other things.

I think they just told her to comment on it because Nadella got offended by the entire internet calling Microsoft "Microslop."

Microsoft CEO Begs Users to Stop Calling It "Slop"

In a year-end writeup on the state of AI, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made it clear he'd really like us to stop saying "slop."

futurism.com

 

[killatopak]

I haven't logged on for a while and the news these past few days alone is something else.

What a week.

 

[Humdinger]

Sorry if it's been posted, but … yeah. This in addition to "Oh I can't just pick 3 favorite games."

FUCK. Twitter sucks.

Seems as if she likes walking sims (narrative-heavy adventures) and cozy, casual games. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like a couple of her picks (Short Hike, Edith Finch). But she spent very little time on what most of us would consider "core" games (Halo, Fallout, Red Dead, Forza, etc.).

"The log begins one month ago." Does that mean her account is only a month old?

 

[Rat Rage]

Phil is a smart dude. He has been knowing Xbox can't be saved for years. He's just been collecting money until the very end

 

[Viruz]

 

[Humdinger]

Wont be that long. Clearly Nadella is not happy with xbox and put in a yes (wo)man as Xbox CEO to quickly pivot to whatever he wants.
We will know by what studio gets the axe by next year.

We'll see. I agree that we might get some clues in what studios she decides to axe, but otoh, I think that will mostly be profit-driven decision, not something that comes down to her "vision" for the future of Xbox, if she has one. And studio closures in themselves aren't a change of direction. We've already seen a lot of them.

She's a new CEO with no experience in the area. She isn't going to rush in with a new agenda. She needs time to learn the ropes and get a feel for the ground game. Some people seem to be expecting big changes are right around the corner (e.g., canceling hardware, full bore AI, return to glory days), but no. It will be status quo for a long while, a continuance of what we've already seen in the past two years. And whatever major changes she decides to institute within the gaming division (apart from closures) will take years to be felt on the consumer end, simply because games take so long to make.

 

[Panajev2001a]

btw Asha in Hindi means hope. So that's a good thing? for Xbox.

Btw, Vita in Italian means life.

 

[semiconscious]

We'll see. I agree that we might get some clues in what studios she decides to axe, but otoh, I think that will mostly be profit-driven decision, not something that comes down to her "vision" for the future of Xbox, if she has one.

She's a new CEO with no experience in the area. She isn't going to rush in with a new agenda. She needs time to learn the ropes and get a feel for the ground game. Some people seem to be expecting big changes are right around the corner (e.g., canceling hardware, full bore AI, return to glory days), but no. It will be status quo for a long while, a continuance of what we've already seen in the past two years. And whatever major changes she decides to institute will take years to be felt on the consumer end.

the only 'vision' i can think she could possibly have as someone with no related background is xbox as third-party developer/publisher. though who knows, maybe even that amount of pullback wouldn't be enough? maybe ms sees triple-a video gaming itself as a dead end, & she's been brought in to sell it off & shut it down for good? cuz she's equipped to do that...

 

[GHG]

If true, 10 out of 12 members is pretty significant.

 

[Topher]

 

[Fess]

The blade dashboard tweet is a good start, but Phil was all talk so let's see if it actually leads to anything.

Even if it were possible to save Xbox, we're at least 2 or 3 years away from the strategy bearing fruit.

Yeah, talking is easy. As usual their problem is to get their strategy into reality, preferably before somebody else is beating them to the punch.
In 3 years Valve will probably already do what Microsoft plans to do. Steam Machine is Valve's Xbox Magnus, launching this year. And the cohesive experience spanning multiple devices is already there. And who knows when Magnus is out Valve might already have a more powerful box, or third party manufacturers doing SteamOS SFF prebuilds.
MS is always slow.

 

[jm89]

The only person to get me to root for an Xbox CEO... Grummz.

 

[Viruz]

If true, 10 out of 12 members is pretty significant.

It was just a matter of time considering the last results.

 

[archangelmorph]

We'll see. I agree that we might get some clues in what studios she decides to axe, but otoh, I think that will mostly be profit-driven decision, not something that comes down to her "vision" for the future of Xbox, if she has one.

She's a new CEO with no experience in the area. She isn't going to rush in with a new agenda. She needs time to learn the ropes and get a feel for the ground game. Some people seem to be expecting big changes are right around the corner (e.g., canceling hardware, full bore AI, return to glory days), but no. It will be status quo for a long while, a continuance of what we've already seen in the past two years. And whatever major changes she decides to institute will take years to be felt on the consumer end.

That's really not the CEO playbook and a fast track way to get fired for impotence.

Whether new execs understand the ropes or not, they have to be seen to come in, build a "big vision" quickly (she would have already started selling that to get selected for the role), and then start executing.

There will (inevitably) be a ton of collateral damage on that. How much depends on how much her -1s push back, how much she listens, learns and adapts or simply steamrolls and deals with the fallout by blaming others and shuffling seats beneath her.

 

[peish]

but "her" playtime posted a few posts up, says differently...

 

[Fake]

Is she gonna spend all her time on Twitter or what?