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Greg Miller: Phil Spencer retirement was not planned

Topher said:
Imagine it is easier with an internal promotion. Asha created her Xbox gamertag last month. I think Satya saw the writing on the wall before the financials were released and had a plan in place that was executed last week. My guess, anyway
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Might be, but still is enough bureaucracy...And more because MS is listed to the exchange market and they need traceability for these type of changes/promotions.
 
Phil was going this year, but Sarah was pushed out and good. Since she took over, Xbox has nosedived and she was out of her depth
I would have liked to have seen Phil seen this year out though, other than ABK deal he's been wonderful IMO
 
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I do believe Phil was sent out to pasture early. But fired? That doesn't make sense to me. He was coaching Asha to take the role. He knew what was in the works. He is also sticking around to help with her transition through August. That doesn't generally happen if you get canned.
 
Obviously they're not going to say they fired Phil and Sarah because they're incompetent, they'll say they're retiring or something, it's all too rushed.
 
Jesb said:
Can they even change course now. I'd think it's too late. Contracts are probably already signed to make those chips no?
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I've said before but I think most of those chips might just make it into datacentres instead for a cloud OS. Might even explain why they brought somebody from MS CoreAI.
 
Topher said:
Yeah, but must corporate jobs are not high profile like this.
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Even in Corporate management, planned retirement is usually announced way ahead of time and there is a transition period.

Every time at my company someone got into this sort of over the weekend retirement, they were pushed out.

On the other hand we had an SVP retire recently, it was like a 3-4 month handover.
 
This is not what Microsoft Official PR is saying.

That's factual evidence and always correct.

Anything that strays from the corporate official statement is moon landing, flat earth hoax conspiracy bullshit.

Companies are to be trusted at all times.
 
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AmuroChan said:
No shit. You don't announce your retirement and then it's out the door before the weekend is over.
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Yeah, don't need a thread for this. Phil and Sarah were dismal failures. A change in direction should have happened 3-4 years ago.

I'm sure Phil will enjoy his millions either way.
 
He swindled Satya and Microsoft for almost $100 billion only to go multiplatform. im surprised it took this long.

He shouldve been fired after the $2.5 billion acquisition of Minecraft came with stipulation that it wont be an exclusive. You dont spend billions at the start of a gen where you are struggling only to make games for your competition.

Then he was allowed to spend $8 billion on zenimax. And then $76 on activision. Satya is a moron himself and should resign as well.

he got lucky with azure and subscriptions model for office 365, but he hasnt actually innovated in the last decade or so.
 
Lionel Richie said:
Phil Spencer is 58, same age as Satya. That's not "planned retirement" age lol.
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That's kind of meaningless. He's worth many millions of dollars; not everyone cares about working until they are old when they are rich AF. And some people get rich and want to do their own thing as well.

Nobody's logic really adds up here: someone can retire and announce that internally and the planned exit can happen immediately once announced. There's nothing abnormal about that.

We just don't know, I certainly don't trust random streamers or YouTubers.
 
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They failed the mission
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Post in thread 'Tom Warren: Expect an Xbox Event in January' https://www.neogaf.com/threads/tom-warren-expect-an-xbox-event-in-january.1678624/post-269921651


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O

Sales-Age  Post in thread 'Mat Piscatella - ROG Xbox ally had a nice month one and has come back down quite significantly since then / it didn't put a dent on the Steam Deck'

Portal is doing just fine though 👀
  • Fire
  • LOL

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Thread 'Mark my words Portal will be bigger threat to Xbox than PS5 it Self'

Xbox biggest advantage is Azure when it comes to the future of "Off-Console Gaming" but with Portal in the mix there is a reminder that there is close to 50 million PlayStation servers in people's homes around the world & growing.
  • LOL
  • Like
  • Thoughtful
  • Fire
  • Triggered
  • Strength

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reinking said:
Ruin what culture? It has been crap for a while. I am not sure another "gamer" is what is needed at Microsoft Gaming or Xbox right now. There needs to be an adult to make adult decisions and not just cater to the circle jerk of fanboy run marketing that has been created over Spencer's tenure. I am a little disappointed Asha is trying to fit in right now with cringe tweets. I would rather see less of that and more transparency about where MS Gaming and Xbox are headed. She doesn't have to be a big gamer to run the business, she just needs to understand video gamers and the market. Less tweeting, more showing. I'm here for it if she can get Xbox on track to what a console business should be. If not, I guess "Xbox" (MS Gaming) games on PC will have to do.
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Totally understand your point, but I think we may be talking about different things kind of. My comment was moreso about the internal culture of Xbox. Like the actual employees at the company.
 
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to those saying he was fired.

Is it not illegal to put out a statement that someone has retired but actually was fired, aren't they misleading shareholders?
 
The Cockatrice said:
He's old and he probably was against AI, at least privately/internally. Of course you're going to get replaced in a big corpo in 2026 by an AI slave. MS is pretty much dead just like Sony and whatever good games come out of their pockets, its not because of their decisions.
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Sony is gonna sell 100+million consoles again, There not dead. They might be messing up there studios, but the Playstation brand is nowhere in the same place as Xbox, which is basically dead
 
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Retirement with such a short prelude in big corporations is the "friendly" version of "You´re fired, pack your stuff". That is not exactly a secret.
Someone looked at numbers, wasn`t happy and kicked the ones in charge of that department out. The only thing that´s suprising here is that it took this long.
 
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Looks like it was fast-tracked as Nadella wanted to change direction sooner rather than later.

Spencer staying until Summer as an "advisor" is probably just him getting paid for not making waves until the previously planned date of his retirement. What might have triggered that is up for debate. They'll probably wheel him out to adorn with awards at some point during the celebrations.

Bond leaving and there being no need for a boss of xbox anymore speaks volumes about where things are going.

Ex-AI product president drops in, says first job is to understand what makes it tick currently and appoints Booty as her #2 in charge of all the devs/pubs.
I am looking forward to partnering with and learning from him - good luck with that.
We will celebrate our roots with a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console which has shaped who we are. Promising...
Gaming now lives across devices, not within the limits of any single piece of hardware. Less promising.
As we expand across PC, mobile, and cloud, Xbox should feel seamless, instant, and worthy of the communities we serve. So "xbox" in this sense is in fact an app or a consistent front end? Gotcha.
We will break down barriers so developers can build once and reach players everywhere without compromise. This isn't about pandering to a small esoteric, walled-off hardware base and is instead all about being ubiquitous - what we've come to expect.
Chances of there being actual in-house console hardware and not just 3rd party OEM stuff with xbox-certified stickers and a custom UI lower than they were a week ago. Still likely, just less likely, as there are far more unknowns now.
 
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anyone who has ever worked for a big corporation knows that retirements are always planned and put in place ahead of time. You get an email in like March saying that "Joe Smith Head of XYZ is resigning effective 9/30 and John Doe is moving into his position. Join me in wishing them well in their retirement." Etc. Sometimes they get a farewell party too like Jim Ryan did (who people here said was fired, with no evidence).

"Retiring" and then leaving the company the same day while the person they groomed for replacement "resigning" that same day is not normal. It's obvious he was fired and replaced.
 
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Topher said:
The thing that stands out to me was that Sarah Bond apparently did not see it coming. She was business as usual earlier in the day on Linkedin and then suddenly resigned. I would think that if this were in the works for a long period of time then she would have been aware. Still doesn't prove anything, but, for me, none of this seems like a voluntary retirement.
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I'm not sure a LinkedIn post tells us much. It wasn't a personal message, it reads like the advertising posts people at her level consistently put up. I wouldn't be surprised if she has staff with access to her socials to post for her.
 
Of course it wasnt planned. What high level exec suddenly retired out of nowhere effective immediately on a Friday afternoon? He was canned.

And his role is a gamer facing role where gaming companies tell the world when high level people move around, so they can put a PR spin to it. It's not like he's a VP of the local water company nobody knows who or cares whats going on.

If his retirement was planned, there would had been a nice celebratory announcement with time to spare. If he changed jobs to a competitor that's different. But doesnt look like he is.
 
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Topher said:
The thing that stands out to me was that Sarah Bond apparently did not see it coming. She was business as usual earlier in the day on Linkedin and then suddenly resigned. I would think that if this were in the works for a long period of time then she would have been aware. Still doesn't prove anything, but, for me, none of this seems like a voluntary retirement.
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if it was in the works for a while she would have replaced him. She was being groomed to be his replacement.

This isn't even a question. There is no ambiguity here. There is nothing to debate. It's 100% clear. Nadella got rid of Spencer and replaced him with Sharma. Bond realized her goose was cooked and she had no future at this company and made the smart decision to resign.
 
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Phil and Sarah were escorted out by security.


Xbox is so screwed. A lot of studios are going to get shut down over there and many will lose their jobs.


Old plans and strategies are out and Xbox is being taken in a direction that many will not like.
 
SlimySnake said:
He swindled Satya and Microsoft for almost $100 billion only to go multiplatform. im surprised it took this long.

He shouldve been fired after the $2.5 billion acquisition of Minecraft came with stipulation that it wont be an exclusive. You dont spend billions at the start of a gen where you are struggling only to make games for your competition.

Then he was allowed to spend $8 billion on zenimax. And then $76 on activision. Satya is a moron himself and should resign as well.

he got lucky with azure and subscriptions model for office 365, but he hasnt actually innovated in the last decade or so.
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MS were buying their way to Fortnite's success with those acquisitions, not to bolster a dying xbox. They knew they couldn't reach that level by going xbox exclusive with the big games anyway. Notch made them remain multiplatform and regulators made them remain multiplatform with CoD. They can still try and pull a Psygnosis for games they are allowed to do that with. where Psygnosis' games were multiplatform under PlayStation but then not for the next gen PS2. Activision might struggle in much the same way though.
 
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Lionel Richie said:
Phil Spencer is 58, same age as Satya. That's not "planned retirement" age lol.
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Was for me. 57, actually. And Phil has a lot more cash in the bank than I did. Not to mention having his Xbox vision crash and burn, then the direction being taken over by Satya. I would've opted out. No real reason to stick around.

I do think Phil got pushed to retire earlier than planned, though.
 
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FIREKNIGHT2029 said:
Phil and Sarah were escorted out by security.


Xbox is so screwed. A lot of studios are going to get shut down over there and many will lose their jobs.


Old plans and strategies are out and Xbox is being taken in a direction that many will not like.
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Source for them being escorted out by security?
 
Det said:
One of the problems with Xbox, among its many, is that when I read this, I don't know if it's a joke or reality...



Obviously, Xbox doesn't have any problems, and therefore there's no reason to fire Phil Spencer. Phil left because he wanted to.

I'll list one of Xbox's problems: fanboys who think Xbox never has problems.
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Who said that?
 
Asha was just put here to push Nutella's AI agenda without resistance. That's all really. She has no gaming background at all, but has a ton of AI background. This is all going to turn into an absolute shit show.

But at this point, I bet Nutella thinks Xbox is not worth anything, so either they somehow manage to do something around AI (they don't even know what) or they totally destroy the brand and get rid of it. I believe this would be his reasoning.
 
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FalsettoVibe said:
I also think that Asha will be out of touch and ruin whatever culture is left at Xbox.
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This would be great for the Microsft Gaming Division. Let's hope her first action is to fire Aaron Greenberg.

Humdinger said:
I don't buy the idea that Phil was fired
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Maybe they gave the option to choose between:
  • Retiring and firing Sarah
  • To get fired after shuting down or selling the gaming division
 
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Phil was forced to retire for sure. Was it dropped on him this week without warning? I severely doubt that - I suspect it was slow rolled as "you are done at Microsoft" with incentives to ease into a transition plan, decided sometime last year before 2026 budgets were finalized. Clean enough for the business to spin to avoid spooking investors further, Phil gets to actually determine if he wants another gig or just ride into the sunset, and presents an opportunity for greater changes in Microsoft's gaming business.

I'll continue to say it - Microsoft doesn't want to be part of the hardware business unless its at software level margins (impossible, though I bet they think AI will make it possible) or providing a stranglehold on the platform so they can further extort customers the way their enterprise businesses operate (effectively impossible except via XCloud and Game Pass).

I don't care what CoreSharma or the C-suite say, they are not to be trusted. They will say anything to retain a userbase, and they might even make some nice gestures to avoid scaring everyone away immediately. DO NOT FALL FOR IT! Of all companies to have their customers' goodwill in mind, Microsoft is NOT one of them. They only got into the hardware industry out of fear of Sony's rise when personal computing was the future, and they have no interest in gaming media as a form of art.
 
yurinka said:
Maybe they gave the option to choose between:
  • Retiring and firing Sarah
  • To get fired after shuting down or selling the gaming division
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Maybe. The way I imagine it unfolded is that Phil was planning to retire -- maybe later this year, maybe next. However, Satya moved fast to reorient the division. Then Satya made it clear to Phil that he needed to move his retirement date up, in order to facilitate the transition. Phil complied. Had he not gone along with Satya's suggestion, he likely would've been fired.

So the choice was between an earlier-than-planned retirement and being fired. I know which I would choose, lol.
 
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Negotiator101 said:
If, but, maybe? Ignore the facts like age, time served, benefits etc being fired as some have suggested is completely different, as you well know.
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I'm not ignoring anything but simply stating the possibility along with other circumstances that occurred alongside the announcement. I've already said it is speculation.

Either way, age, timed served, benefits do not have any bearing on whether his retirement was forced or entirely voluntary.
 
onQ123 said:
Was it?

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My best guess, this was discussed behind the scenes with Shareholders. Possibly early January 2026 is when discussions began or slightly earlier to have Phil announce retirement and get Asha ready for her position. Having Sarah dip was probably not expected but not a surprise to Satya.
 
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