Microsoft has announced they are doing a major shakeup to management in their gaming divisions.
As reported by The Verge, Phil Spencer is now above Team Xbox, as President of Microsoft Gaming. In this capacity, he will be in charge of the departments in charge of HR, communications, finance, etc aside from the departments of Microsoft Gaming that are actually related to making games and consoles.
Matt Booty is now President of Game Content and Studios. This means he will be the boss in charge of Zenimax / Bethesda and Activision Blizzard King, as well as the 20 something studios they owned before Zenimax, including the likes of Mojang, InXile, Obsidian, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory.
Sarah Bond is now President of Xbox. Reflecting her impressive credentials as a leader in Microsoft, she will be in charge of Devices, Player & Creator Experiences, Platform Engineering, Strategy, Business Planning, Data & Analytics and Business Development.
Many fans and reporters who watched the Activision Blizzard King acquisition play out remember seeing how Bond did very well for herself when she was called as a witness in the regulatory hearings. In this position, she will have to make decisions, such as what changes they will finalize on their mid generation refresh for Xbox Series X|S.
The Verge notes that the management shakeup ends with more women in positions of power in the division than any other comparable game company, but most of the women were assigned to the divisions not directly related to gaming. Sarah’s ascent is particularly important because none of the previous major platform holders were led by a black woman. Sarah certainly deserves this promotion, and this is also a groundbreaking move by Microsoft.
Alas, rather than a good ending to the story of the Activision deal, this is really only the start of the next chapter. Microsoft Gaming will now have to justify their heavy investments in Zenimax / Bethesda and Activision Blizzard King in the next few years.
Rather than dominate Sony and Nintendo in the console space, that justification will come when Microsoft Gaming manages to make profits at a significant value above how much they paid for the acquisitions. All of Microsoft’s studios can be firing on all cylinders, making popular games that are beloved by fans and hit the top numbers of the sales charts, and it could all be not good enough.
With such a tall order ahead of them, the challenges and risks are genuinely steep for this new team, and everyone is going to have to step up to these new challenges to make it to their next chapter intact. If you’re a gamer, even if you don’t play Xbox, you have to hope they make it, for the sake of the industry at large.
