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Phil Spencer is exiting Microsoft as AI executive takes over Xbox
- koshergweilo 8mo agoI found this quote from the AI executive slightly reassuring: "As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop," Sharma added. "Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us." While I'm sad to see someone who's been with the company for so long leave, it's undeniable that the Xbox brand has really faltered under his watch
- square_usual 8mo agoYeah, that's a great thing to hear? At the end of the day it's all exec speak, but it softens the blow of the title a little.
- ribosometronome 8mo agoPeople say a lot, especially when it benefits them in the moment to tell people what they want to hear. "I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift." — Palmer Luckey (2014) "No advertising coming onto Netflix. Period." — Reed Hastings, Netflix co-CEO (2019) "Read my lips: no new taxes." — George H.W. Bush (1988 Republican National Convention) "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." — Franklin D. Roosevelt (October 1940 Campaign Speech) "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." - President Barack Obama (June 15, 2009, AMA Speech) "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them." — Donald Trump (July 5, 2024)
- koshergweilo 8mo agoYeah hence the "slightly" in my comment. At least it seems like they understand understand the problem, even if they may change their mind in the future
- perfectstorm 8mo agohow did Obama break that promise? i don't recall people having to change plans? i know you have to have a health care plan but if you already have one, did Obamacare force you to change it?
- silisili 8mo agoIt didn't force people to change insurers, it forced insurers to change their policies, which ended in about 4 million people getting cancellation notices.
- ivewonyoung 8mo agoEven Obama later admitted it was a lie and apologized for it. It was NPR's lie of the year. https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+admits+lie+health+plan&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1035US1035&oq=obama+admits+lie+health+plan&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAtIBCTEwMDc1ajBqMagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+admits+lie+health+plan...
- triceratops 8mo ago> Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars — Franklin D. Roosevelt Not a lie or broken promise because it wasn't a foreign war. WW2 came to America's doorstep. The first American battle of the war was fought on US soil.
- mikkupikku 8mo agoCorrect, specifically the Territory of Hawaii, which America had annexed 60 years earlier but not yet made a state.
- lukol 8mo agoNext up: Executive AI takes over from AI executive
- jact 8mo agoNow it will play video games for me. Great!
- lofaszvanitt 8mo agoIt took MS this long to yeet the incompetent Phil from the corp... sigh. The problem is, MS was never good in nurturing creatives. Why would anything change?
- karim79 8mo agoWas he really that bad? Wasn't the predecessor dude the guy who said something along the lines of "all games will require an Internet connection, you cavemen" or something along those lines?
- galkk 8mo agoYes. One of very recent examples: handheld Xbox. There are rumors about upcoming handheld Xbox. Many like the idea It is announced, marketed as handheld Xbox (asus xbox ally x). Quite expensive, but okay. After some time (!) they reveal that this handheld Xbox actually won’t play your Xbox games/subscription. It will play your pc subscription and pc games. Wtf Literally about time when the sales of the device actually start, Microsoft racks up the price of Xbox ultimate from $20 to $30 per month. They unsubscribe page is overloaded. How any coherent management would allow this?
- ThrowawayB7 8mo agoXbox has been languishing badly and Microsoft games in general have not been doing very well over the past decade despite gaming becoming completely mainstream so one might suspect that he is being retired rather than retiring. Yes, he was better than Mattrick but that was a very, very low bar to clear. I will give Spencer a bit of credit though for bringing back Microsoft Flight Simulator.
- tylerflick 8mo ago2020 yes. 2024 on PS5 IMO was a waste of money. The problem is they both require tons of computing power to run smoothly and look good.
- karim79 8mo agoI want to agree but I don't see the greener grass at all. Please bear in mind that this is totally anecdotal. I own all three major consoles. My PS5 has been switched on about six times since I purchased it at the time the PSVR2 was released. Is it because I'm not into the funky and weird JRPG titles or am I just sold to the Xbox ecosystem? I play Xbox almost every single day. My PS5 is just using up space and for two titles which didn't fully grip me (Horizon and The Last of Us). What am I missing here? Is the answer PC/Steam?
- computomatic 8mo agoFrom reading tea leaves, I’m fairly convinced Microsoft sees streaming games as the future of Xbox. There’s a clear line from AI to that when you consider how many slightly outdated but not useless GPUs will be in Microsoft data centres within the next couple years.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- fatata123 8mo ago[dead]
- Scramblejams 8mo agoMicrosoft can really get it wrong, but getting streaming wrong after Stadia and Luna would be very, very impressive.
- throwaway85825 8mo agoSince the A100 the x00 series GPUs dont have the ability to run graphics drivers. The hardware is optimized for FP8 and not much else. That's how they've gotten 'faster' for AI workloads, by dumping graphics.
- gustavus 8mo agoI'll be honest my initial read of the headline caused me th think they were have MS Copilot act as the new head of Xbox, not the person taking over Xbox used to be the guy in charge of an AI product.
- siva7 8mo agoWould it make a difference?
- outside1234 8mo agoHow do we know Asha is not AI. She certainly looks the part.
- galkk 8mo agoGood riddance. Unfortunately with the length of dev cycles his successor is inheriting such a mess that he’ll have target on his back from day one.
- fakedang 8mo agoSeems like his successor does not have much of a plan either. > In another internal email addressing staff, the new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma gave some hints as to how the future of Xbox will look. She outlined three commitments: "First, great games." "Second, the return of Xbox." and "Third, future of play." She went on to say that the company will continue to invest in its franchises and studios, keep Xbox spreading across platforms to reduce barriers, while also inventing "business models and new ways to play."
- candiddevmike 8mo agoSounds like a concept of a plan. I was always an Xbox person instead of PlayStation, I was part of the Xbox Live beta and had so many great memories from that era. After the lack of exclusives on the Xbox Series X, their game pass shenanigans, and the horrible UX decisions over the years, the Xbox brand is trash to me. Same with Halo, what a freaking waste of an IP.
- danudey 8mo ago> Sounds like a concept of a plan. It's safe to assume that her first e-mail to staff is not going to include a comprehensive breakdown of every action she plans to take. Not saying she does or doesn't know what she's doing, but it would be weird if she went into much more detail at this point before she's even ramped up.
- fakedang 8mo agoWould be good to provide clarity to the trenches though.
- ddtaylor 8mo agoStrangely I thought Phil Spencer was doing a lot of good for the Xbox brand, minus some of the recent price gouging.
- binsquare 8mo agoI certainly think he's good at branding but very poor execution during his reign. Both Playstation and Nintendo Switch significantly exceeded xbox in terms of good games in the last decade imo.
- musicale 8mo agoIt seems like Sony and Nintendo had more high-quality exclusives (though mostly timed exclusives for Sony), which are system sellers, while most Xbox games were also available on Windows. But the Xbox hardware is good, franchises like Halo / Gears / Forza etc. have always been good, and Xbox Game Pass is great.
- corimaith 8mo agoI wouldn't say he mismanaged but clearly his strategy wasn't working, although I'm not sure if there was a path to a better outcome. The problem was the lack of hit IPs, and buying a bunch of studios with good histories like Bethesda was on the surface, a logical choice. The problem is that the Western AAA industry was also undergoing through a general decline amidst a larger cultural shift that was anathemic to originality, so no new hits could be made. Nintendo and Sony in contrast still had a portfolio of more niche legacy studios like Monolith or Atlus or Kojima that could create new things. Obviously the talent for that does exist in the West, from Larian or smaller indie studios, but it is very hard for upper management to discern these kinds of details or be willing to take the risk with them.
- willis936 8mo agoHe oversaw a lot of good things. Recently he's been in "admit defeat and dissolve the brand" mode. To me this has smelled like a "my hands are tied and someone above me is making bad decisions" path, but I don't have anything to justify that other than it doesn't make sense to absolutely fold when it's your name on the line and it's the brand you've spent your life building.
- cynicalsecurity 8mo agoWhat a glorious clickbait title.
- sellmesoap 8mo agoI for one welcome our new AI executives, oh lame it's a fallible C suite human again, all hail the monolith!
- peebee67 8mo agoI also fell for it.
- tonymet 8mo agoI was disappointed to learn that a human was taking over and not Skynet
- nektro 8mo agowow, end of an era
- pm90 8mo agoXbox isn’t doing very well so of course it’s now up to a woman to clean up the mess. I don’t envy the position that Asha has landed in, especially with how much misogyny exists in the gaming subculture.
- dev1ycan 8mo agohttps://www.teamblind.com/post/does-someone-here-know-how-this-person-became-vp-at-meta-in-just-a-couple-of-years-ztj5jxtp https://www.teamblind.com/post/does-someone-here-know-how-th... Can we take a look at this post? she was replaced by someone who climbed ranks while destroying everything she touched, is is purely because she is Indian? what is going on in America?
- cucunutlady 8mo agoA lady full of word salads was the vice president of united states for 4 years. Was then even nominated to be a president. No different here. America has been ruined.
- MetaverseClub 8mo agoThat's a good post but we don't even need this post to tell of her incredible power of smashing great things. I wish to see her in the next Shehulk movie.
- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 8mo agoUnder Phil they spent 69 billion acquiring Activision with what looked like a big move against Sony only to give up exclusivity to titles like Halo and Forza and game pass going from a budget friendly option to a premium subscription. Basically they went from having some moat to just throwing in the towel.
- newsclues 8mo agoSpin off Xbox, it’s horrible as a neglected division.
- one_of_a_kind 8mo ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 8mo agoSource: https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-retiring-sarah-bond-out-matt-booty-promoted-as-microsoft-ai-exec-asha-sharma-named-new-xbox-boss-exclusive https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-retiring-sarah-bon... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47093723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47093723)
- estimator7292 8mo agoEagerly awaiting my new CopilotBox Zero 360 dotnet.