As part of the Microsoft plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion, the Giant software has created a Microsoft Gaming division. Phil Spencer, former Xbox head, will now lead this team as it focuses on games on Xbox, PC, Mobile and Cloud. It’s a big promotion for Spencer, described as XBoss from Xbox Fan.
Spencer originally hired as the head of the Xbox division of Microsoft in 2014, reporting to the previous head of Windows Terry Myerson. In a sign of how the game has changed to Microsoft under Spencer, he quickly moved to Microsoft’s Senior Leadership Team in 2017, reporting directly to the CEO of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as a corporate game vice president. After over 30 years at the company, Spencer is now Microsoft Gaming CEO, as it seems to face the mobile game, the metaverse and the cloud game with over 20 play studies.
Microsoft is now willing to spend billions of acquisitions to strengthen its game efforts after acquiring Bethesda last year for $ 7.5 billion. Activision Bizzard will not be a particularly easy acquisition for Microsoft, though. The company in difficulty has struggled to address employee concerns for a myriad of accusations of poor sexual conduct. Spencer and the team of him Microsoft Gaming will surely have a lot of work to do to ensure that culture within Activision Blizzard is addressed.
Here is what Microsoft Phil Phil Spencer gaming CEO had to say about his new role and business efforts in an e-mail to staff today:
Welcome from holidays. To start, I would like to thank everyone for all hard work and dedication that built this activity and this community. Obviously, today’s agreement to acquire Activision Blizzard is incredibly exciting. In fact it is a milestone for our company, our activity and our sector. The entire game leadership team is deeply enthusiastic about this opportunity. We also announced this morning that we exceeded 25 million game subscribers through consoles, cloud and PCs, a great result for the whole Xbox team.
As players and partners, we all know how talented and dedicated to the teams and studios crossed Activision Blizzard. The legendary games and franchises throughout this company have delighted millions of people for decades. Coming together, we can accelerate our mission to extend the joy and community of games to all. We have the ability and opportunity to simply build the best entertainment ecosystem, more engaging and fun anywhere.
Microsoft is engaged in our journey for inclusion in every aspect of the games, between employees and players. We deeply appreciate the individual cultures of the study. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand in hand with the treatment of each person with dignity and respect. We keep all the teams and all leaders, to this commitment. We look forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to large teams through Activision Blizzard.
We expect this acquisition closing in FY23, awaiting regulatory approvals. Once the acquisition is completed, the business of Activision Blizzard refers to me. Meanwhile, we know you will have many questions. The game leadership team and I can’t wait to respond as many as possible to our next update of monthly games on January 26th. You can send your questions now in an anonymous way, or publish them on our Xbox Yammer team. Please also update on our guidelines on social media media.
As mentioned Satya, now I’m CEO, Microsoft Gaming. This change is a reflection of incredible work that everyone is doing to create the best entertainment ecosystem everywhere. As a leadership team, we know how exciting but difficult work we have before us, so it is crucial that we operate as a single and unified team. To this end, I am excited to effectively announce today that Jerret West, Gaming CMO, and the marketing team of him will move from Chris’s organization. Capossessa to refer directly to me. JERT will continue to be a member of the Chris leadership team and exploit critical parts of Microsoft marketing muscle, including communications, media and consumer sales.
We will have a webcast for investors and media at 6:00 pt to discuss the transaction of Activision Blizzard and our plans like Microsoft Gaming. Please join if you can.
Phil.
The CEO of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also sent your email to today’s announcement staff. Nadella describes the game as a game “a fundamental role in the development of metaverse platforms” that the company is looking for Svil