2 weeks ago
Matthew Ball is nan caller main strategy serviceman for Xbox up of Project Helix.
Aaron Souppouris for Engadget
Xbox has hired your favourite video crippled developer's favourite manufacture analyst, Matthew Ball, arsenic its caller Chief Strategy Officer. As reported by The Game Business and confirmed via his LinkedIn, Ball is joining Xbox pinch nan stated extremity of strengthening its console segment, which is successful dire straits owed to world representation shortages, caller firm upheaval astatine Microsoft, and unrelenting title from Sony, Nintendo and, soon, Valve.
Ball is simply a task capitalist and tech manufacture advisor pinch a well-documented history of analyzing emerging integer economies and nan video crippled market. He was astir precocious nan CEO and laminitis of Epyllion, an advisory patient and integer accumulation location that besides runs a large-scale metaverse finance fund, and he publishes regular breakdowns of nan industry's biggest players and trends, including an yearly State of Gaming report. Ball is nan writer of The Metaverse, a book beloved by Tim Sweeney, Mark Zuckerberg, Karlie Kloss and, not awkwardly astatine all, former Xbox head Phil Spencer.
Microsoft shook up its longstanding Xbox activity squad successful February, pinch Spencer and president Sarah Bond exiting, and Xbox Game Studios caput Matty Booty being promoted to Chief Content Officer. Asha Sharma, erstwhile president of Microsoft's CoreAI division, filled Spencer's aged domiciled arsenic CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Since taking over, Sharma has cut Game Pass prices, teased a PC-console hybrid called Project Helix, and removed Microsoft's Copilot AI adjunct from nan Xbox ecosystem. And now, she's hired Ball to benignant retired Xbox's caller attack to hardware.
This year's level changes came aft different information of massive layoffs astatine Microsoft successful July 2025, which heavily hit its gaming sector, resulting successful aggregate crippled cancellations and studio closures. This, of course, was aft Microsoft spent a fewer years hungrily acquiring studios including Double Fine, Compulsion Games and ZeniMax Media, culminating pinch nan courts-approved purchase of Activision Blizzard for $69 cardinal successful 2023.
In different firm shift, Microsoft's erstwhile caput of Azure OpenAI and AI Core infrastructure, Scott Van Vliet, is joining Xbox arsenic Chief Technology Officer today. That move was first reported by The Game Business' article and confirmed connected LinkedIn shortly after.
