Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has been answerable for Xbox for over a decade and the corporate says he’s not leaving anytime quickly, calling rumors that the longtime exec may be resigning when the subsequent technology of Xbox {hardware} launches “fully made up.”
The forceful denial comes because the tech big’s gaming division faces its newest spherical of mass cuts amid a bigger massacre leading to over 9,000 layoffs throughout everything of the corporate. As main shifts see Xbox go multiplatform and double down on PC gaming in an obvious retreat from the core console enterprise, many have questioned how for much longer Spencer would stick round.
Within the midst of Wednesday’s chaotic cuts, a Name of Responsibility leaker account on X referred to as TheGhostOfHope made a wild declare that Spencer was getting ready to retire from Microsoft with present Xbox president Sarah Bond set to succeed him in the course of the transition to the subsequent {hardware} technology, which is predicted to launch someday between 2026 and 2028. Microsoft has referred to as this flatly unfaithful.
Microsoft head of comms Frank Shaw pushed again straight on a report by Insider Gaming aggregating the rumor, posting on X in response to the location’s founder Tom Henderson, “as long as by ‘summed it up’ you imply ‘made it up.’” The corporate reiterated this to The Verge, writing in a press release that “Phil will not be retiring anytime quickly.” Whether or not “quickly” means the subsequent 12 months or the subsequent few years, it’s clear Spencer’s run is more likely to final some time but.
He’s already outlasted a number of rivals from the opposite console producers. Spencer appeared on stage at The Sport Awards 2018 with Shawn Layden, then chairman of Sony Interactive Leisure Worldwide Studios, and Reggie Fils-Aimé, then head of Nintendo of America. Each have since retired, with Sony speedrunning by way of a second PlayStation CEO, Jim Ryan, in the course of the years since.
Regardless of representing an enormous tech firm answerable for a spree of hyper-consolidation inside the gaming trade, Spencer has maintained a heat relationship with followers, thanks partly to the ungodly variety of precise video games he performs yearly. However he’s additionally confronted more and more robust criticism from gamers as a result of 1000’s of sport builders laid off beneath his watch within the span of simply 18 months.
He visited Sea of Thieves studio Uncommon simply final fall and mentioned in a podcast interview in February that he was happy with the progress the studio was making on its new action-adventure Everwild. 5 months later, it’s the newest mission on the chopping block, at the same time as Microsoft’s inventory value hits document highs.
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