Microsoft CoreAI exec Asha Sharma will take over in surprise executive shake-up.
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Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer steps down after 38 years with company
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Oh wow, so Xbox is actually officially dead.
Dear Nadella: go to therapy or go fuck yourself.
I've been on the Xbox train since the OG Xbox launched when I was in middle school. Phil Spencer was the best thing to happen to Xbox since Seamus left, but now Microsoft as a whole is officially dead to me.
Fuck Sony too, I hope Valve and Linux steps up to fill the gap, but I will finally go PlayStation now that you're putting a non-gamer, marketing / AI exec in charge of your gaming division.
Honestly what the honest fuck.
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MedicinalGoat
Ars Centurion
Satya waterboarding his employees with a big sloshing bucket of AI slop frantically pleading for innovation to happen while all the shareholders look on from the shadows not unlike a notorious scene from Requiem for a Dream.
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I am getting a premonition: Xbox Copilot - Why Grind? New amazing feature from Microsoft where you tell xbox how you want to build your character, and it will auto-grind for you to build your perfect character. Further, it will learn from your inputs so it can continue to play while you sleep! Xbox Copilot - Why Grind?
Oh, I am getting another one: We apologize to our users who were banned due to anti-cheating. We are working with our partners to resolve the issue. In the meantime, buy another console and perform a ritual sacrifice to turn off auto-grind.
Oh, I am getting another one: We apologize to our users who were banned due to anti-cheating. We are working with our partners to resolve the issue. In the meantime, buy another console and perform a ritual sacrifice to turn off auto-grind.
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A recent ars article pointed out that Xbox brings in comparable revenue to Windows these days.
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Also, by spearheading the Activision acquisition, he gave a huge amount of undeserved money to Bobby “I’m in the files” Kotick, got thousands of people fired, and killed Halo.
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Honestly feels like this is the point at which Xbox dies.
I have owned them all
From the OG Xbox I bought for Jet Set Radio Future when it felt like the second coming of the Dreamcast
Through the glory days of the 360 and Lost Odyssey, Star Ocean the Last Hope, Tales of Vesperia, Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, when JRPGs were releasing first or even exclusively on non-Japanese hardware and it felt like the market had forever shifted and Sony had been broken
Then through the One Announcement That Lost Microsoft Gaming ("this is how you share a game on PS4") and the slow and painful rebuilding of trust in the brand that eventually gained some of the lost ground
And finally through the dim days of the Series, where it was painfully clear Microsoft was not going to be able to compete with Sony on quality and quantity of exclusives.
Know you were loved, Xbox, and that you will be missed - if for no other reason that the console market needs the competition - and in my specific case because I loved Play Anywhere, the Dashboard, Developer Mode, the non-region-locked digital content/DLC and that an Xbox account could have its region changed (at least after the 360), something Sony still does not allow.
I hope you will join your brothers Windows Phone and Zune in the great beyond.
I have owned them all
From the OG Xbox I bought for Jet Set Radio Future when it felt like the second coming of the Dreamcast
Through the glory days of the 360 and Lost Odyssey, Star Ocean the Last Hope, Tales of Vesperia, Eternal Sonata and Blue Dragon, when JRPGs were releasing first or even exclusively on non-Japanese hardware and it felt like the market had forever shifted and Sony had been broken
Then through the One Announcement That Lost Microsoft Gaming ("this is how you share a game on PS4") and the slow and painful rebuilding of trust in the brand that eventually gained some of the lost ground
And finally through the dim days of the Series, where it was painfully clear Microsoft was not going to be able to compete with Sony on quality and quantity of exclusives.
Know you were loved, Xbox, and that you will be missed - if for no other reason that the console market needs the competition - and in my specific case because I loved Play Anywhere, the Dashboard, Developer Mode, the non-region-locked digital content/DLC and that an Xbox account could have its region changed (at least after the 360), something Sony still does not allow.
I hope you will join your brothers Windows Phone and Zune in the great beyond.
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almostinsane
Ars Praetorian
If Xbox wasn't already dead, here's the confirmation. New CEO is all about the AI and has zero gaming experience. Want to play your next Xbox game? Ask Copilot to play for you and then Copilot will tell you how good the game was and how you should feel about it so you can rage on Reddit like nothing has changed!
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Oh boy! More AI garbage no one asked for!
Im willing to bet more of the lame AI interface and generative slop is going to be the focus over actually using AI tools for a better game (ie, make 100pct of game by hand, let AI make another 50pct to make it better).
Why did they put this guy in charge? Does MS understand that AI isnt making any money? At least the LLM crap...
Im willing to bet more of the lame AI interface and generative slop is going to be the focus over actually using AI tools for a better game (ie, make 100pct of game by hand, let AI make another 50pct to make it better).
Why did they put this guy in charge? Does MS understand that AI isnt making any money? At least the LLM crap...
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She definitely seems like a terrible pick, but the entire Xbox brand is trash now it's also extremely difficult to care or even guess how it could sink lower.
Hopefully that bloated carcass can squeeze out one last decent fable before fading into oblivion at least.
Hopefully that bloated carcass can squeeze out one last decent fable before fading into oblivion at least.
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Good grief, with the IP they own and the financial backing they had, how did Microsoft screw things up do badly? Oh, I see. It's Microsoft.
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I've been told that in cases of people of Indian origins promoting others of Indian origins, we should be doing a caste analysis, looking for "nepotism", same a s we do for western people with the same last name or familial ties. Has anyone done that in this case ?
I'm asking because I see no reason why that lady would be ending up at the job ?
I'm asking because I see no reason why that lady would be ending up at the job ?
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I noticed that the article was silent on whether or not she's an actual gamer. I'mma guess probably not. Why would you hire someone to run the gaming division who doesn't even have an inkling regarding the gamer mindset. It's like hiring someone to run Ford who's never driven a car.
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I think it's probably best to focus on the "slop" part of her quote. That's very different than the AI person they hired saying they are not going to use AI.
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Citizenkain
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Phil was handed a turd sandwich when Don Mattrick pooched the Xbox One, but he never really solved the problems there either. The One had a decent turn around with the One S, the backwards compatibility was a huge step forward for the platform, but it never regained its footing. I think their biggest enemy was Microsoft corporate though, they spent a shitload of money to get Activision, only to shove out a lot of middling games. So I guess I can't really see what someone else can do worse there.
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Can you please explain why you would come in here lying about Spencer’s gaming history of all things? I’m really scratching my head here.
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13 years. He became head of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA back 2001.
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Realistically, unless you've committed to Linux, you didn't really walk that far. Like based on what they are doing FSE, I suspect the next console will just be Windows.
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Please do not edit people's quotes, even for silly fixed that for you jokes
T, FTFY
And my best answer: the “leader of the free world” is a grifting Nazi pedophile. That seems to be having a very negative effect on basically everything.
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"That commitment would “start with console which has shaped who we are,” but expand “across PC, mobile, and cloud,” Sharma wrote."
It seems clear to me that this is Microsoft terminating Xbox and probably all console development. The people who left were given the word and they chose to leave rather than be fired. Sharma is the hitman.
This reminds me quite a bit of when Sun Microsystems promoted Jonathan Schwartz to the CEO position and then shopped the company around until Oracle finally bought it.
It seems clear to me that this is Microsoft terminating Xbox and probably all console development. The people who left were given the word and they chose to leave rather than be fired. Sharma is the hitman.
This reminds me quite a bit of when Sun Microsystems promoted Jonathan Schwartz to the CEO position and then shopped the company around until Oracle finally bought it.
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https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=indian+caste+system+in+silicon+valley
Edit: it's not different than looking for family, frat and university ties. I'd argue former employers/jobs too.
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Rest in Peace Xbox! You show promise but your parent was an idiot and never understood you!
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Reggie fought the Nintendo execs to make Wii Sports a bundled in game, which is probably the number one reason the Wii was a massive hit. Nintendo wanted it to be a separate purchase like the Switch 2 tech demo.
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Yeah the way people talk about Spencer is weird to me. Like the dude did more to make gaming more accessible than any executive in decades. Just because that may have hurt some nebulous console brand nonsense is irrelevant imo. I want to play games where I want and with who I want and Spencer did a massive amount on that front.Oh god, an AI exec?
This sucks. Probably not for Spencer, who I think was likely not pleased to have to eat shit sandwiches like jacking up the price of Game Pass and console hardware, or executing mass layoffs these last couple of years. But for the rest of us, he championed consumer-friendly initiatives that I found really valuable. Play Anywhere, Game Pass, Smart Delivery, and backwards compatibility all happened under his watch. He pushed hard on improving the PC experience. He also played games himself and understood where a lot of the pain points were.
Fanboys invested in brand wars hated it, but Spencer's pushing Microsoft towards becoming a multi-platform publisher also gives us all more choice in the long run. People say it's going to kill Xbox, ignoring the elephant in the room that that already happened when previous management fucked up the Xbox One launch and sent a generation of gamers to build digital libraries on other platforms. They were never coming back, and the Xbox Series trailing the PS5 so drastically in sales is the proof. Xbox is going to become a bespoke gaming PC brand in the future, which TBH I'm totally cool with, since it'll let me buy games from whatever store offers the best deal as opposed to having to decide based on which games are locked to the hardware.
Armchair CEOs in comments sections across the Internet have given him a hard time for awhile now for various reasons. But I'll remember him fondly as someone who drove hard to break down the walls of platform exclusivity and made my gaming dollar go further.
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The problem of Xbox (and sony, and partially of the switch) is that they no longer use specifically-designed chips; nowadays they use (little-)customised computer chips, and unix-like OSses.
So they truly have no true advantage against PCs, and portable handheld PCs.
The move of xbox towards publishing their IPs on PS is clearly in the direction of moving xbox towards a store-like service
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It looks like Xbox, PSx and other box playing business is the past now. And they didn't identify what is coming yet.
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yep and sony holding group(the parent company of everything shell corp by sony)
$23.68 billion
1 billion of that alone is due to anime content both ip and production side.
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While no longer true today, there was a time when it was possible to build a basic but decent gaming PC for not too much more than the price of a PS4 or Xbox One.
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Also note that Fils-Aimé was not in a comparable position He was head of Nintendo of America, which handles sales, marketing, distribution and translation for North America. It does not do any game development. Sharma will lead everything games-related at Microsoft.
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I’ve been gaming on Linux (using Fedora) the last 3 or 4 months with no major issues. It’s not perfect but it’s good enough that I’ll never go back to windows.
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Steve Jobs called it decades ago - Microsoft, institutionally, has no taste. They understand best practice, they understand process, they understand, technically, how to achieve great things. But they have no taste, so in the consumer space (where it matters) they never use that behemoth-scale expertise to build and sustain anything great. At best they build imitative mediocrity with small flashes of brilliance.
I’ve been in corporate for nearly ten years now and I’m convinced that the more somebody communicates in corporatese, the less they understand how to interact with or even understand the world with the wonder of a child. And we’re worse for it.
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