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Sarah Bond has been promoted to President of Xbox. Matt Booty promoted to President of Xbox Game Content and Studios

D

Darsxx82

Member
“Great games are fundamental to everything we do,” explains Spencer in his memo. “We believe that an expanded gaming content organization — one that enables Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax’s development studios to collaborate effectively together — will empower those world-class studios to do their best work in growing our portfolio of games players love.”

It seems that P. Spencer in his memo has highlighted this idea of direct collaboration between the different Zen-Bet and XGS Studios. It is one of the most positive things I can take away from this reorganization.What degree of independence will she have from P. Spencer when making decisions?

Then there is what creates doubts in me and it is on the one hand that the function of ensuring the best collaboration between these Studios is in the hands of M. Botty....And on the other hand that S. Bond is the general responsible for the hardware and Xbox software.

Everyone loves Sarah and I agree that (even more so after the ABK judicial process) she has shown great personality and negotiation skills (the agreement with Square, Sega, Activision etc. is largely due to her role and initiative) . But it's hard for me to decipher what her thoughts and vision of her Xbox are. Hardcore gaming? Casual?. What type of catalog do you want to promote? Gass games? Single player??

I guess it won't be long before we have an interview with him defining her vision.
 
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CatLady

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Salty Popsicle said:
For a moment there I thought Phil Spencer was stepping down and being replaced by Sarah. Aren't President and CEO generally the same things?
Click to expand...

That was my first thought when I saw the thread title. Glad to know that's not the case, but I have no doubt a lot of people on this forum will probably be really disappointed.
 
Monkfish877

Monkfish877

Member
Surely someone at MS is doing an internal review/audit of what's going wrong at Xbox? Just look at the state of Xbox, something has to change surely?.
 
MidGenRefresh

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
ynJ12Sb.jpg
 
ChuckeRearmed

ChuckeRearmed

Member
I guess that confirms that they will hire somebody to lead ABK. Matt will control around 5k people, Mike will have similar headcount. Activision has the similar headcount and will be led by somebody else.
 
King Dazzar

King Dazzar

Member
So does this mean Sarah will now be the idolised focal point of worship? Will Sarah be the new gamers gamer!? Will adamsapple adamsapple now shift his fantasies away from Phils testicles to Koticks cock or will he dream of Sarah's hairy pussy. Will Colt and Co now shill for Microsoft Gaming instead of Xbox.... exciting times!!
 
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Member
Heisenberg007 said:
I can't wait for the day when the "change" actually comes in form of an official announcement and/or become the new reality, and people act surprised 😄 The writing has so been on the wall.

Sarah is going to manage the Xbox hardware and software platforms, being the President of Xbox. What is Phil gonna do being the head of Microsoft Gaming? These are now fast becoming two separate entities: (1) console and (2) game publishing and mobile gaming.
Click to expand...

Mibu no ookami said:
Booty will still get the axe before her. I still anticipate he'll be fired by the end of next year.

She's in a tough position, what's even more strange is that they have a COO of Microsoft Gaming and it isn't her.

Hard to tell from this org chart if she is in charge of GamePass or not. If she's just in charge of Xbox hardware, she doesn't really have a job or a future. That's kind of a promotion to nowhere, that I'd take the title and jump ship to someplace else before the bottom drops out.

With Booty in charge of the games, what levers does she have over the hardware? The price, revisions, whether or not they release a pro model? R&D on a next-gen unit?

Like if you think about it, there is no equivalent at Sony, that's Jim Ryan. So unless they are prepping for her to takeover for Phil, this doesn't add up and if that was the case you think they'd have made her COO of Microsoft Gaming.
Click to expand...

HeisenbergFX4 said:
The writing has been on the wall before most people even knew it and internally some at Xbox knew the path Sarah was on and bailed because of it

Wish someone like Schreier would get wind of the promoting process that was at one time at Xbox and how people were given points based on other things than past experience and education because Sarah had 2 points before walking into the interview room
Click to expand...

Interesting theory here. So, basically, the idea is Sarah is being dead-ended? And that this might be due to failure of growth for Game Pass?

Well that would kinda suck for her; Game Pass wasn't her pitch, it was Good Guy Phil™'s. But growing that type of model without, y'know, games, was always going to be hard with a brand facing declining relevance. So if she's not in a position to take Phil's spot if he retires, and the COO is, then hopefully the COO has an actually refreshing perspective for Xbox hardware.

Personally I think Microsoft might actually be planning to transition Xbox off the normal console business model altogether, after all. And they're having Sarah Bond oversee all of that. Whether she stays on after that transition is complete is anyone's guess but it is rather damning she's the only one among the flock with a position explicitly related to Xbox and not Microsoft Gaming.

Of course a lot of this is my own ideas for the brand; the traditional console business model isn't a winning game or suitable avenue for Microsoft going forward. They don't have to stop making gaming hardware, but they would benefit much more aligning it significantly closer to PC and Windows at the consumer end.
 
TheThreadsThatBindUs

TheThreadsThatBindUs

Member
Matt Booty continues to fail upwards.

Sarah Bond is the ultimate DEI promotion, i.e. someone who has been at Xbox for all of 5 mins and yet gets catapulted up to the C-suite because she is black and has a vagina
... maybe? I guess she'd be even more intersectionally diverse if she doesn't, lol.
.

I don't doubt that she's capable of what she does, but you cannot tell me there aren't more qualified people at Xbox in terms of knowledge of the gaming industry and years served at the company.

I mean, she fucks with Klobrille. A shrewd gaming exec would know better than to associate with riff-raff like that.
 
Hudo

Hudo

Member
Can one of these useless MBA's tell Blizzard to unfuck themselves and unfuck WarCraft 3?
 
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SportsFan581

SportsFan581

Member
Insert Oprah gif, and your president, and your president.... :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I assumed they were positioning Bond as the forward face of Xbox. The camera likes her and she seems committed to the path they are on, I can support that. I thought Booty was already the head of the game studios, but I guess this move puts him in charge of Bethesda and ABK as well. I didn't know how I felt about Booty before, but after the leaks it's clear he has more of a killer instinct than he lets on, the console warrior in me likes that. Congratz to them.
 
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Mibu no ookami

Mibu no ookami

Banned
DaGwaphics said:
Insert Oprah gif, and your president, and your president.... :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I assumed they were positioning Bond as the forward face of Xbox. The camera likes her and she seems committed to the path they are on, I can support that. I thought Booty was already the head of the game studios, but I guess this move puts him in charge of Bethesda and ABK as well. I didn't know how I felt about Booty before, but after the leaks it's clear he has more of a killer instinct than he let's on, the console warrior in me likes that. Congratz to them.
Click to expand...

It does not put him in charge of ABK.
 
Banjo64

Banjo64

cumsessed
DaGwaphics said:
Insert Oprah gif, and your president, and your president.... :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I assumed they were positioning Bond as the forward face of Xbox. The camera likes her and she seems committed to the path they are on, I can support that. I thought Booty was already the head of the game studios, but I guess this move puts him in charge of Bethesda and ABK as well. I didn't know how I felt about Booty before, but after the leaks it's clear he has more of a killer instinct than he let's on, the console warrior in me likes that. Congratz to them.
Click to expand...
Disagree that the camera likes her - she’s more of a cyborg than Hilary
 
Jigsaah

Jigsaah

Member
So, trolling aside - as anybody could predict from this thread, at least this is them trying to fix their management. I still think they need to hunt down Connie ASAP. Golden Opportunity. Put her somewhere in striking distance of Maat Booty's position.

They say that Matt Booty's promotion should deal with issues that became evident with Redfall...so we'll see.
 
G

Godot25

Banned
Three said:
Bobby and MS confirmed he's staying at least until the end of the year. Nobody said he's leaving after that date.
Click to expand...
Yeah. They for sure specified that Kotick is staying until end of 2023 because they will keep him in 2024...
Bruh. If the intended to keep him they would not use phrases like "I will help with transition period" and "until the end of 2023." They would have said "Bobby Kotick is staying as head of ABK"

Kotick will be gone in January. He has no reason to stay. He got his money, he can retire rich as fuck.
 
G

Godot25

Banned
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
Interesting theory here. So, basically, the idea is Sarah is being dead-ended? And that this might be due to failure of growth for Game Pass?

Well that would kinda suck for her; Game Pass wasn't her pitch, it was Good Guy Phil™'s. But growing that type of model without, y'know, games, was always going to be hard with a brand facing declining relevance. So if she's not in a position to take Phil's spot if he retires, and the COO is, then hopefully the COO has an actually refreshing perspective for Xbox hardware.

Personally I think Microsoft might actually be planning to transition Xbox off the normal console business model altogether, after all. And they're having Sarah Bond oversee all of that. Whether she stays on after that transition is complete is anyone's guess but it is rather damning she's the only one among the flock with a position explicitly related to Xbox and not Microsoft Gaming.

Of course a lot of this is my own ideas for the brand; the traditional console business model isn't a winning game or suitable avenue for Microsoft going forward. They don't have to stop making gaming hardware, but they would benefit much more aligning it significantly closer to PC and Windows at the consumer end.
Click to expand...
Jesus...
When we got from "Xbox would make Call of Duty exclusive if they were not forced by contracts" to "Xbox is on path of being third party" in span of few months?

Or is "Xbox is on path of being third party" new version of "Microsoft is going out from gaming business" that was parroted in last decade?
 
JohnnyFootball

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Bry0 said:
Why do some people seem to like Sarah? These all seem like clueless suits to me?
Click to expand...
I'll judge her based on what she accomplishes. I will give her the benefit of the doubt, but on X everyone seems to be gushing over her getting a promotion. I'd like to know what all great things she has done.
 
elmos-acc

elmos-acc

Member
Topher said:
Wonder if this is why Pete Hines left. Looks to me like Bethesda has been knocked down a peg or two. No longer a separate pillar alongside Xbox Game Studios.
Click to expand...

It might be as simple as the transfer from "Head of publishing" of Bethesda to "just another Microsoft employee" is not perhaps the most exciting career opportunity.
 
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