Microsoft Hires Analyst With Influential Video Game Blog To Fix Xbox

Microsoft has hired games analyst and investor Matthew Ball as Xbox's new chief strategy officer. With a long track record of analyzing the video game market and industry's biggest shifts, Ball's background could help Xbox rethink its hardware and console strategy at a moment when competition is tougher than ever. Engadget reports: Ball is a venture capitalist and tech industry consultant with a well-documented history of analyzing emerging digital economies and the video game market. He was most recently the CEO and founder of Epyllion, an advisory firm and digital production house that also runs a large-scale metaverse investment fund, and he publishes regular breakdowns of the industry's biggest players and trends, including an annual State of Gaming report. Ball is the author of The Metaverse, a book beloved by Tim Sweeney, Mark Zuckerberg, Karlie Kloss and, not awkwardly at all, former Xbox head Phil Spencer.

So... metaverse...

[Puls4r]

So Microsoft has hired on a guy who bought into the Metaverse stupidity.... and they expect him to lead their Xbox resurgence.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Re:

[ffkom]

I think nobody at the top of Microsoft really expects or even wants to re-enter the console market. They just want yet another marketing bullshitter join the attempt to mislead people into believing that that Windows pig painted with some Xbox-branding lipstick is a gaming console.

Too funny

[jdawgnoonan]

Reading this makes me doubly sure that my Xbox Series X will be my last Xbox product.

Re:

[jdawgnoonan]

And I am not trading it in for a WIndows PC as I quit those years ago.

Re:

[Locke2005]

There's very little difference between and Xbox and a Windows PC these days. They are both running Windows. The Xbox just has an UI better suited to controllers. That's actually not a bad strategy, because it make it easier to write games that work on both.

Re:

[JThundley]

Good news for you: Linux PCs run Windows games better than Windows does now.

They Shoulda' Hired-

[Gilmoure]

- that guy from Bleeding Cool News that looks like a giant lawn gnome.

He was pretty good in Fanboys (2009).

Great

[PPH]

I have an XBox with a broken power supply. Can I sent it to him and get it fixed?

Re:

[karmawarrior]

You can, but it'll be a while. You wouldn't believe the number of red-ring-of-death XBoxes piled up inside and outside his office he needs to fix first.

Re:

[ffkom]

I have an XBox with a broken power supply. Can I sent it to him and get it fixed?

Yes, for the price of a new gaming PC they will send you one, outfitted with an "Xbox"-sticker at the front. Then you will only need to buy once again all the games you have on your Xbox discs, and you are good to go again. Ok, some of those Xbox games you previously bought won't be available, but that is just to enhance your experience.

Letâ(TM)s make gaming like work..

[illafam]

Last time I powered on my Xbox I used my kids controller.. to continue I needed to update the firmware of the controller.. to do that I needed to login into their account, to do that I needed to 2FA from their iPad.. to do that I had to run around the house to find the iPad, then I had to charge their iPad.. once that was done I needed to update the console for security updates.. once that was done I had to install the game updates.. At some point I had to login to my phone and find the family options and

Re:

[ffkom]

That is why I do not connect the Xbox to a network. And will certainly never buy any future one that refuses to work without network connection.

fix xbox

[gary s]

SO they are fixing the xbox reputation and not xbox itself? Seems like a job for copilot not a real human.

Re:

[lxnt]

what makes you think he's a real human?

Re:

[sinkskinkshrieks]

Could've budded off from Zuck and had a robot skeleton installed.

Cheaper to just fix the naming

[lquam]

Xbox + number. Of course, since they were a generation late to the party they'd have to skip one to have number parity with Sony at 6 for the next round.

He will recommend spinoff to private equity

[sinkskinkshrieks]

And maximum enshittification. Games will be leasable by the day only, billed with a per hour usage fee, and only be available for 2 years. Hardware will brick itself every 6 months. Oh, and fire all human employees to be replaced with AI, of course.

I've seen some of Epyllion's analysis

[Gideon Fubar]

It's oriented around the unstated belief that only the triple A games industry represents legitimate business, and tracks a bunch of metrics in a way that is so skewed it almost seems like they have an axe to grind.

Ball's approach is largely top down and only in touch with a series of market sanitized adages, so I'm not sure how he's going to deal with the problem of Microsoft largely being top down and only in touch with a series of market sanitized adages.

Go Open

[Elektroschock]

In the future all gaming consoles will be based on open source operating systems. I am not sure, Microsoft is ready tyet o make that move for XBox.