[vertigoOne]

Report: Xbox boss Don Mattrick leaves to take top Zynga spot | Polygon

I vote for Cliffy B

[theeboredone]

Well, it has been confirmed. Always sucks to see someone lose their job. Even if it was due to a bonehead move. But dude is already positioned to be making a lot of money anyways.

[berty6294]

I suppose I'll step up

[EDDS]

Looks like Steve Ballmer is in charge for now.

I always liked Peter Moore, I wish he would come back from EA.

[smoledman]

Joe Belfiore!

[Reflexx]

J. Allard!!

[Ridemyscooter86]

Its funny, Its hard not to like Joe belfiore, I mean hes done a great job with wp so far, even with the small amount of money and people I'm sure that they have. Clearly, you can tell that MS doesn't seem to give them enough money. I like the guy though because he genuinely seems to like technology and isn't just in it because hes some business exec...

[Robert Carpenter]

Hey guys, I'm back from being banned again! LOL :)

I would like to see the Xbox division dissolve into one giant hardware division including Surface and other things. There needs to be more conformity with the Windows division.

[a5cent]

^ In celebration, I would like to nominate Robert Carpenter and Winning Guy for that position!

[HeyCori]

It seems like Microsoft gets better every time an exec leaves.

but to answer the question, maybe Larry Hryb (Major Nelson) should get it.

[coip]

Well, it has been confirmed. Always sucks to see someone lose their job. Even if it was due to a bonehead move. But dude is already positioned to be making a lot of money anyways.

So, you think they fired him because of the whole uproar over the Xbox One DRM stuff and Microsoft's ridiculously unprepared responses to it all? Is this just speculation or have others reported on this to. Makes sense as there was no excuse for Microsoft not having a better PR plan in place months ago, but I wonder how this will affect Xbox One from here on out.

[Blu3V3nom07]

50 Cent. Think about it.

[berty6294]

I just realized today that Zynga's Baltimore headquarters is like right next door to my work. lol walked down the street looked to the right and read Zynga on the door and was like " ... oh!"

[Keith Wallace]

Hey guys, I'm back from being banned again! LOL :)

I would like to see the Xbox division dissolve into one giant hardware division including Surface and other things. There needs to be more conformity with the Windows division.

I think that Microsoft is too big for that. A section controlling games is probably really large as it is, considering the fact that Microsoft employs, what, 90,000+ people? Having the Xbox and Surface teams rolled into one sounds like something that is too much for one executive to handle, but that's just my opinion.

[Ridemyscooter86]

I've read apparently that the xbox division will be directly under ballmer, or at least for now. It sucks that ballmer isn't a gamer, but at least he's competent. No he won't do anything innovative but if he were directly in charge of the xbone launch from the start, none of this PR disaster would've happened. This unfortunately shows the main problems that MS has sometime is that they are so big that their separate divisions can't be kept on a tight leash, I mean they fired sinofsky when he screwed up the surface/windows launch and now don mattrick is getting the boot because he screwed up the xbob one launch. One problems with ahving a big company is you're only as good as the people you hire and both of those guys were good examples of what happens when you don't hire the right people for the job;(

[Mystictrust]

So, you think they fired him because of the whole uproar over the Xbox One DRM stuff and Microsoft's ridiculously unprepared responses to it all? Is this just speculation or have others reported on this to. Makes sense as there was no excuse for Microsoft not having a better PR plan in place months ago, but I wonder how this will affect Xbox One from here on out.

That's one theory. Here's another: Mattrick's exit from Microsoft reportedly due to impending executive shuffle

maybe Larry Hryb (Major Nelson) should get it.

If Major Nelson were to lead Xbox, we'd lose him and his social connection to the Xbox community. He'd be doing other stuff. Major has said before that he has to keep straight the stuff he knows that hasn't been announced yet and the stuff that has been cleared, yet he still doesn't know everything - if he were the Xbox bigwig, and he knew absolutely everything, I really don't think they would want him to keep chatting with everyone all the time. They just need to move Major Nelson up in visibility and let him do some actual PR (he's not actual PR, as he has said. They likely class him as "social media"). The smart thing that anyone on that Xbox team can do is actually LISTEN to Major Nelson when he sends suggestions, which is often. His suggestions come from the community he interacts with, and he genuinely seems to listen to us.

[_Emi_]

I've read apparently that the xbox division will be directly under ballmer, or at least for now. It sucks that ballmer isn't a gamer, but at least he's competent. No he won't do anything innovative but if he were directly in charge of the xbone launch from the start, none of this PR disaster would've happened. This unfortunately shows the main problems that MS has sometime is that they are so big that their separate divisions can't be kept on a tight leash, I mean they fired sinofsky when he screwed up the surface/windows launch and now don mattrick is getting the boot because he screwed up the xbob one launch. One problems with ahving a big company is you're only as good as the people you hire and both of those guys were good examples of what happens when you don't hire the right people for the job;(

hmm I don't think Sinofsky or Mattrick were fired, if Mattrick was fired, why would he have a job the same day? he already had planned it.
today in What The Tech, Paul said something that made sense. Since Ballmer wants a reorganization in Microsoft, they (Sinofsky and now Mattrick) knew they wouldn't have the same role/power they had before, so that could be the reason for them to leave. also isn't it weird that 2 persons considered for people like "jerks" and then not good for Microsoft, leave the company? and I mean they were Presidents of a Division, they had important roles at MS.
so I really believe it has to do with the reorganization and all the plans Ballmer has had for sometimes for Microsoft.
of course Mattick wasn't having a good image over xbox one reveal, but if it was for the reorganization as I believe, he didn't care since he knew he would leave for Zynga anyway.

but yeah, I believe Ballmer would have done a better job with Xbox One, he has good speech skills, his build keynote was nice.
and you say he wont innovate anything in xbox? but look at Windows division, Windows 8.1 is a really good release! and still there is more to come, and the division will work the same, Julie reports to Ballmer, just as "Don's directs" will report to him.

I don't even know how they being fired makes much sense, for example, if Sinofsky was fired for all the win8 release, why would Ballmer put in charge Julie which is the reason we all have Windows 8 modern UI yesterday and today (you know the reason some people "hate" windows 8)? why would they put someone that would keep Windows 8 in the same direction? because you already know 8.1 still has the start screen, and start screen has improved more and more, so its not going away anytime soon, and its obvious start menu wont come back.

But well maybe reorganization is just a rumor, they were fired. someone will take the lead later... Xbox will innovate the same (just as windows without Sinofsky) and the none will remember Mattrick existed. so as long as Xbox goes better and better, I really don't care who is in charge.

[Ridemyscooter86]

hmm I don't think Sinofsky or Mattrick were fired, if Mattrick was fired, why would he have a job the same day? he already had planned it.
today in What The Tech, Paul said something that made sense. Since Ballmer wants a reorganization in Microsoft, they (Sinofsky and now Mattrick) knew they wouldn't have the same role/power they had before, so that could be the reason for them to leave. also isn't it weird that 2 persons considered for people like "jerks" and then not good for Microsoft, leave the company? and I mean they were Presidents of a Division, they had important roles at MS.
so I really believe it has to do with the reorganization and all the plans Ballmer has had for sometimes for Microsoft.
of course Mattick wasn't having a good image over xbox one reveal, but if it was for the reorganization as I believe, he didn't care since he knew he would leave for Zynga anyway.

but yeah, I believe Ballmer would have done a better job with Xbox One, he has good speech skills, his build keynote was nice.
and you say he wont innovate anything in xbox? but look at Windows division, Windows 8.1 is a really good release! and still there is more to come, and the division will work the same, Julie reports to Ballmer, just as "Don's directs" will report to him.

I don't even know how they being fired makes much sense, for example, if Sinofsky was fired for all the win8 release, why would Ballmer put in charge Julie which is the reason we all have Windows 8 modern UI yesterday and today (you know the reason some people "hate" windows 8)? why would they put someone that would keep Windows 8 in the same direction? because you already know 8.1 still has the start screen, and start screen has improved more and more, so its not going away anytime soon, and its obvious start menu wont come back.

But well maybe reorganization is just a rumor, they were fired. someone will take the lead later... Xbox will innovate the same (just as windows without Sinofsky) and the none will remember Mattrick existed. so as long as Xbox goes better and better, I really don't care who is in charge.

when it comes to the big corporations, nobody is "fired" per se, they basically are forced resignations. Think about it, even though Ballmer was going to do the whole Microsoft comapany structure reoganization, the fact that both Sinofsky and Mattrick "resigned" immediately after they both screwed up the launches of two critically important MS products should give you a clue that its not a coincidence. I'm not saying BTW that Ballmer isn't innovative, but he's the CEO of MS, so while he does have to sign off on things, he probably can't be deeply in touch with the development of a product when he has so many things to manage all at once.\


Also the point you made about putting Julie in charge is (or at least in my opinion) is her public speaking and competence. Have you seen her speak compared to sinofsky, she is a way better public speaker than sinofsky was and you're right she was in charge of the metro UI. The thing sinofsky screwed up on was, like the xbox one, the PR and launch of the product. Mind you, I sell computers so I can tell you from a consumer point of view, about 75% of people don't know that windows 8 can run all (or almost all) of their windows 7 programs. Most people think that its a completely separate system. Most people also come into our store telling me that they want windows 7 because "they've heard bad things about window s8 and that it sucks". They've never used it, they don't know whats wrong with it, just that its "buggy, slow, and that it crashes a lot", none of which are true in the least. Most people also don't know the difference between windows 8 and windows RT. When they launched the surface, they should've launched the PRO and the RT versions at the same time, or if they couldn't should've launched the PRO first as that is the model most people are interested in. Also, watching the demo unit for the surface fail during the keynote with sinofsky was pretty funny too lol.

[berty6294]

guys I don't think you heard me... ZYNGA IS LIKE RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!! ZOMG

[Robert Carpenter]

Everyone, just wanted to remind/inform everyone that Don Mattrick was not fired. This has nothing to do with the Xbox One PR or anything related.

It has already been stated/explained that, as a result of the upcoming reorganization from Ballmer, Don Mattrick's position was going to be merged/downgraded to reflect the division/department changes in the company. Don Mattrick wanted to play a bigger role in the company than he was going to be playing after the reorganization, so he chose to continue his career elsewhere.

If Don Mattrick was fired or forced to leave, there would absolutely not be an extremely nice and positive PR email about his exit from the company. If someone leaves on bad terms, it always reflects from the company's reactions.

So please, no more talk about bad Xbox One PR, similarities/relations to Sinofsky, etc. This was not a firing.

[martinmc78]

Everyone, just wanted to remind/inform everyone that Don Mattrick was not fired. This has nothing to do with the Xbox One PR or anything related.

It has already been stated/explained that, as a result of the upcoming reorganization from Ballmer, Don Mattrick's position was going to be merged/downgraded to reflect the division/department changes in the company. Don Mattrick wanted to play a bigger role in the company than he was going to be playing after the reorganization, so he chose to continue his career elsewhere.

If Don Mattrick was fired or forced to leave, there would absolutely not be an extremely nice and positive PR email about his exit from the company. If someone leaves on bad terms, it always reflects from the company's reactions.

So please, no more talk about bad Xbox One PR, similarities/relations to Sinofsky, etc. This was not a firing.

Try not to get banned again buddy - I miss your posts.

[Robert Carpenter]

Try not to get banned again buddy - I miss your posts.

Thanks man, that warms my heart haha. I managed to one-up myself at The Verge during my ban, and got banned from The Verge permanently. That mad me chuckle lol.

I think it's ironic because if I remember correctly, the first time I ever got banned was actually from arguing with you about the HTC 8X sim card errors Oh how time flies... :)

[martinmc78]

Thanks man, that warms my heart haha. I managed to one-up myself at The Verge during my ban, and got banned from The Verge permanently. That mad me chuckle lol.

I think it's ironic because if I remember correctly, the first time I ever got banned was actually from arguing with you about the HTC 8X sim card errors Oh how time flies... :)

Considering some of the comments that go in the verge discussions I cant even imagine what you wrote to pick up a permanent ban.

Yeah we did get a bit heated over that one. Like you I don't like backing down without concrete proof that I am wrong - and seeing as the report I got back from HTC claimed hardware and software failure on my old 8X I guess we were both right.

[Robert Carpenter]

Considering some of the comments that go in the verge discussions I cant even imagine what you wrote to pick up a permanent ban.

Yeah we did get a bit heated over that one. Like you I don't like backing down without concrete proof that I am wrong - and seeing as the report I got back from HTC claimed hardware and software failure on my old 8X I guess we were both right.

After an insanely stupid post from someone, I gave them some advice and insisted on suicide as the primary option. I kind of worded it a bit differently, but I mean.... at least I started off the post with "I may be going too far here, but....". The ban reason was: "Yes, that was definitely a bit too far." :)

It was my first infraction there ever. I guess they are a little less forgiving than WPCentral LOL

[berty6294]

After an insanely stupid post from someone, I gave them some advice and insisted on suicide as the primary option. I kind of worded it a bit differently, but I mean.... at least I started off the post with "I may be going too far here, but....". The ban reason was: "Yes, that was definitely a bit too far." :)

It was my first infraction there ever. I guess they are a little less forgiving than WPCentral LOL

lmao you shoulda seen me over at ZuneBoards. I was banned every other day leading up to 3 PermaBans.