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Two more senior Xbox leaders exit Microsoft

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Microsoft has lost another two long-serving members of its senior team: corporate VP of partnerships, business development, and marketing, Lori Wright, and general manager of gaming AI at Xbox, Haiyan Zhang. Both announced their departures on LinkedIn.

Wright is leaving after "an incredible decade" at Microsoft and Xbox, and though she thanked colleagues, partners, and friends who "shaped [her] journey", she did not expand on her next steps, only writing: "As for what comes next, I'm hoping for a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and discovering what lies in the space in between".

Zhang similarly served at Microsoft for more than a decade, writing that she had "decided to step into the next phase of [her] career, which will take [her] on a new adventure beyond Microsoft". She will be joining Netflix's gaming team.

When The Verge's Tom Warren announced Zhang's departure on X/Twitter, she replied, "It's just a new job, dude. Apparently [people] do that :)", and when another commenter likened her resignation to "the rats leaving a ship", she responded: "sometimes it's just all about ME and nobody else".

"At Microsoft, I felt I had truly found my people: a place where I could belong," she added. "I hope I carry forward some small piece of the culture we built together: one of curiosity, acceptance, and inclusion".
 
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Are they being replaced by Copilot?
They're rolling back on copilot..

.....You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad.
Reducing disruption from Windows Updates...
 
They're rolling back on copilot..

.....You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad.
Reducing disruption from Windows Updates...


No they're just pandering to the crowd at the moment
 
God we really are in a sloppy point in life where a mostly unknown person leaves their job but because of online rhetoric they have to get into complaining wars online.

People really need to just delete social media from their lives.
 
New leadership brings in new leaders. That's usually how it works.
This. Asha is going to want to build her own team around her. Because if you do the same thing with the same people, you get the same result.

But that doesn't mean we're going to like the new strategy.
 
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Hear You (c) Asha

The industry needs a strong 2nd or 3rd place, I feel like Microslop should just move on, they fucked up enough. The problem is there is no one with enough money to enter the race, disrupt and keep the two Japanese titans honest. It pain's me to stay this, the game industry needs a healthy Microslop even if they force AI upon us like no tomorrow.
 
Gaming needs execs who knows both games and has a sense of business sense.

But it seems most just blow the budget as long as the CEO or investor company has deep pockets. A ton of money, people and dragged on time lines and you still get a lot of junky games. Or even worse, it drags on 5 years and they cancel the game and shut down the studio. So somehow it takes 5 years to figure it out to cut the cord. Crazy.

What a waste of resources. And sometimes it even gets so bad they ran out of money and release whatever crap they got for sake of scooping up any sales. Again, lousy project management and budgeting.

They seem to have trouble knowing how to make good games, on time, and at a reasonable budget.
 
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