Former Xbox boss and incoming CEO of Zynga Don Mattrick will not be replaced immediately at Microsoft, according to a memo issued to Microsoft employees from company CEO Steve Ballmer.
The full Skewedcast crew back for this episode and Gareth, Justin, Michael, and JoeyZ at Skewed and Reviewed break down the latest entertainment news qith a focus at 40:00 on the Microsoft Studio Closures and how it impacts the game community and what can be done to help offset this negative trend.
Xbox has repeated the same terrible mistakes for over a decade. The reason is simple: its priorities are back-to-front.
ohhh man, the press really did not like those last closures, their having a field day bashing xbox,
anyway, ive got to nip off to the shops now, i've run out of microwave popcorn.
Apparently the last 10 years wasn't enough to get the gaming press to notice but as soon as they touch Bethesda it is full on nuclear war. A lot of people in the gaming press seem to have this irrational hard on for Fallout and Skyrim despite the fact they are low quality poor buggy games.
I've grown tiresome of the unbalanced fandom in the gaming press for fantasy games and their ability to just forgive crap so long as it's a fantasy game RPG game all quality concerns are not an issue for them,
Clearly this is just a big conspiracy orchestrated by the popcorn industry, Microsoft are just their puppets, every time they open their mouths, I'm forced to stock up on popcorn.
The only point to xbox is and always has been to take market share and money from PlayStation and Nintendo, but mostly PlayStation. It's been the goal since sweaty Steve Balmer said it himself.
Yup. To put Sony out of business because they thought they were a threat to their Windows business.
I mean the motto "xbox, the most optional console ever made" was peaked years ago, people are just now taking a step back from deepthroating Phil to see what we've all been seeing for a long time now.
I’ve still got friends that main on XB. For their sake, I hope it sticks around. They’ve put everything into that ecosystem. It’s all or nothing.
I wonder if we’ll ever get back the level of competition seen during the 360/PS3 era?
Seems like Daddy Microsoft is trying to shut it down. Or at least bring costs under control. On the bright side, it seems likely that acquisitions are going to stop.
TSA asks what is the future for Xbox.
They clearly never did, hence why they spent so many BILLIONS on other publishers as a last resort.
They have a plan. It's to move everything toward streaming and mobile. This is just the next step.
With half of the money they spent, they could have been on the very top and the gaming industry would be way bigger than it is.. encourage developers, indies, make them grow trust them and they will deliver.
What are you talking about Cacabunga? The Xbox faithful insisted that Microsoft has infinite money, and after Activision they should buy Square Enix and Capcom before Sony does. There was no chance ever that Microsoft would do this. They would use their infinite millions and Bitcoins to invest in 50 new IP and beat everyone.
Sure, a plan to be a more hated game company than EA. Ubisoft were recently giving them a run for their money but I think Xbox have really knocked it out the park with their latest stunt.
Absolutely not, their whole plan is at odd with what MS wants
Phil wants GP to become big
MS wants to sell games and make billions
GP can’t be sustained with AAA games which take 3-5 years and 7 figure budgets. Only go put those games on GP day one. Why do you think games are coming out on other platforms?
People want a change and want Phil gone without realizing if someone new comes along they may want to change everything again so we just keep going in circles. Phil has to realize that and give clear message on the direction of Xbox
Something's terribly wrong at Microsoft's Entertainment (Xbox) division. Terribly.
"most importantly, we expanded Xbox to go beyond great gaming to deliver all the entertainment people want — sports, music, movies, live television and much more."
Wow, so Ballmer is now boss and the most important thing about Xbox One to him is sports, music, movies and live television.
Wow. Speechless.
"The consoles are incredible all-in-one devices with built-in services that consumers love, including Bing, Xbox Live, Internet Explorer, SkyDrive and Skype. And, just as important, Xbox Games, Xbox Video, Xbox Music and SmartGlass light up Windows PCs, tablets and phones."
Notice how games dont even come first this is only the beginning of the entertainment box. Yusuf Medhi is gonna take over Don's position be prepared for more tv and sports.
isn't Steve Ballmer turned record profits while he was in charge of Microsoft?
The thing you need to remember with Microsoft is that their investors really want them out of gaming. Ballmer, like him or hate him, is the one keeping the brand in place and fighting against the share holders on it.
The PR disaster the XBone has been won't sit well with the shareholders either and Ballmer accepting a more direct approach may be their appeasement so another disaster falls on Ballmer's head directly and they can get rid of him and the biggest defender of the XBox Microsoft has at high levels or leave him with no choice but to drop the brand should it go to hell.
It is also likely because Microsoft is doing a major reconstructing of executives and their business models so with this news they likely will have to push that back a bit to find someone to replace him.
The rumors were he was going to be one of the big three executives to get more power as MSFT turned Xbox into more of a brand and service.