Following the finalisation of its Activision Blizzard acquisition, Xbox is changing how it manages the many studios that now fall under its banner. In a new internal memo (thanks, The Verge), Phil Spencer reveals that Matt Booty, Xbox Game Studios head, will now have a bigger oversight of some studios.
Booty is being promoted to president of content and studios, which puts him in charge of ZeniMax and its subsidiary studios, such as Bethesda Softworks. “ZeniMax will continue to operate as a limited integration entity led by Jamie Leder, President and CEO, reporting to Matt,” Spencer writes. “Also, to deepen our partnership and accelerate mutual learning, a number of ZeniMax leaders will now report to those Microsoft leaders with whom their work most closely aligns.”
Initially, Xbox had taken a very hands-off approach with its acquired studios, just letting them run their development as they saw fit. However, this has led to a couple of disasters in recent years (cough, cough, Redfall), and so it seems that now Xbox wants to keep a closer eye on what its studios are up to.
We probably won’t see the effects of this organisation change for some time, but it’s interesting to see Xbox no longer take the chilled-out, hands-off approach.
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