Phil Spencer is out as Xbox CEO, Xbox president Sarah Bond has left unceremoniously, Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is now EVP and chief content officer, and Asha Sharma, president of Microsoft's CoreAI product, is stepping in as Xbox CEO. That is a lot to take in, and with such a fundamental shakeup to Xbox leadership, you might expect some other, uh, changes, at lower levels of staff, but Booty has assured there are "no organizational changes underway for our studios."
In Microsoft's announcement (thanks, PC Gamer), Booty played his role as an executive vice president at a huge company adequately. That is, he tipped his hat to Spencer, talked highly of Sharma, and said he's excited about Xbox's future under new leadership. Nothing you necessarily need to read if you're familiar with corporate jargon, but he did slip in one semi-candid, substantive insight into what's happening, or should I say not happening, at Xbox right now.
"My focus is on supporting the teams and leaders we have in place and creating the conditions for them to do their best work," said Booty. "To be clear, there are no organizational changes underway for our studios."
Again, if you're well-versed in corpospeak, you already know organizational changes typically translates to layoffs, so it seems like this is Booty and by proxy Xbox's attempt at softening an otherwise jarring and unexpected turn of events. It's good no one's been let go, of course – any time there's new leadership at a big company there are layoff concerns – but I don't expect the lower rungs at Xbox are sleeping especially soundly tonight. There's still time, unfortunately, is what I'm saying.
