Speaker 1: Welcome the Strictly Business Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations about
Speaker 1: the business of media and entertainment. I'm senior business writer,
Speaker 1: TV and Video games Jennifer Moss. Microsoft's Xbox is taking
Speaker 1: a victory lap after an impressive Game Showcase presentation at
Speaker 1: the David Geffren Theater in Los Angeles on June tenth.
Speaker 1: The show was anchored by the reveal of Call of
Speaker 1: Duty Black Ops six, followed by major announcements from titles
Speaker 1: across Xbox Game Studios, eluding the DEZDA, Activision, and Blizzard,
Speaker 1: as well as third party titles. Here to talk about
Speaker 1: the highlights from the show and the inner workings at
Speaker 1: Xbox post Activision acquisition is Matt Booty, head of Xbox
Speaker 1: Games Studios.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Matt for joining us today. I so appreciate
Speaker 2: your time after the long weekend we had at showcase.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you very much for the opportunity to
Speaker 3: be here. It's great to talk with you, and thank
Speaker 3: you for making time this past weekend to come to
Speaker 3: the showcase. What did What were your impressions after actually
Speaker 3: seeing the show.
Speaker 2: I was actually going to start off by asking you
Speaker 2: to give yourself a grade, and then I will give you.
Speaker 3: Mark, Okay, we can what.
Speaker 2: The internal judgment has been on how well how you
Speaker 2: all did well.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, I'm just very proud of our teams.
Speaker 3: You know, these trailers and these demos take quite a
Speaker 3: while to put together. I think, as you and I discussed,
Speaker 3: we actually start the process in December, you know, getting
Speaker 3: ready for the show here in June, so there's an
Speaker 3: awful lot of work. Very proud of our teams and
Speaker 3: the quality that they delivered. The breadth of content that
Speaker 3: was on display there was just fantastic. If I go
Speaker 3: on based on fans reactions and some of the press
Speaker 3: reactions that I've seen out there, I would say that we,
Speaker 3: you know, deserve a pretty positive grade. It's always a
Speaker 3: big source of that's energizing, it's inspiring. It's just so
Speaker 3: great for our teams to see the reactions. This morning,
Speaker 3: I was watching a compilation of some of the reactions
Speaker 3: to the Gears of War trailer and was so great
Speaker 3: to see the fans really resonating with the approach that
Speaker 3: we've taken there. So I think internally we feel positive
Speaker 3: about it. Of course, you know, now it is so
Speaker 3: important that we execute. Well, we've got twelve months an
Speaker 3: amazing lineup of games, but you know, at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, it's about shipping those games and making
Speaker 3: sure they're great, making sure that we live up to
Speaker 3: the expectations of the fans and that we deliver them
Speaker 3: on time. So a little bit of a break to
Speaker 3: be proud, and then I think it's back to work
Speaker 3: for all of us.
Speaker 2: All right. I agree with your assessment. I will say
Speaker 2: going in, I did not expect as much as I saw,
Speaker 2: and that's a positive thing. I really thought, you know,
Speaker 2: this is going to be mainly call of duty, and
Speaker 2: we're going to get a lot, and we're going to
Speaker 2: see a lot of good stuff, and that's the revealed
Speaker 2: call of duty. But the sheer number of other things
Speaker 2: that came out of it high level and it was
Speaker 2: just a lot. I'll say that it was a lot,
Speaker 2: and it was a lot of good stuff too, not
Speaker 2: just dumping a bunch of stuff on. And I am
Speaker 2: not the only one. I mean, obviously you've seen there's
Speaker 2: headlines that this is Microsoft's best showcase ever, this is
Speaker 2: microsoft best showcase in years, and so I wanted to
Speaker 2: know just coming up, like you had said, we talked
Speaker 2: about in December is really when you start this. But
Speaker 2: what kind of led to this convergence of having this
Speaker 2: number of high level announcements, first looks, gameplay footages to
Speaker 2: show at this time because some years are drier than others,
Speaker 2: and this was just so much at once. And I
Speaker 2: want to know if you were pushing to get things
Speaker 2: ready in time, if there's things that you maybe would
Speaker 2: have held but chose to announce just to give it
Speaker 2: an extra push. What made this showcase so impressive because
Speaker 2: it wasn't just Black Offs, which was the big star
Speaker 2: going in.
Speaker 3: Now, that's so hepeful question, and I have a few
Speaker 3: good things in there to talk about. I think, first
Speaker 3: and foremost, this was our first opportunity for all of
Speaker 3: our studios across Xbox Game studios, across the studios inside Zenomax, Bethesda,
Speaker 3: and then of course Activision and Blizzard to really come
Speaker 3: together in one moment. And so I think the some
Speaker 3: of the critical mass that we had, some of the
Speaker 3: excitement about the number of games that we're able to
Speaker 3: show and the quality really is a reflection that this
Speaker 3: is the first time that our teams have been able
Speaker 3: to come together. We also and you hinted at this
Speaker 3: are beginning to hit the rhythm that we've always aspired for,
Speaker 3: and that really is our commitment to our players of
Speaker 3: being able to deliver a much more steady cadence of
Speaker 3: games on a more predictable rhythm. And we started really
Speaker 3: in earnest with acquiring and building out our studios portfolio
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, and then we had the wonderful Zenmax
Speaker 3: Bethesda acquisition in twenty twenty one, TI twenty two, and
Speaker 3: then you know, last fall bringing on board Activision, Blizzard
Speaker 3: and King. But it has taken a while to sort
Speaker 3: of get all of that up to speed. And in
Speaker 3: the midst of that, of course, we, you know, all
Speaker 3: of us went through COVID, which certainly had some ups
Speaker 3: and downs in the industry, you know, across not just games,
Speaker 3: but all of entertainment. So I feel like this is
Speaker 3: us beginning to hit our stride. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that I am encouraged by is that I look
Speaker 3: forward to the future of next year that we are
Speaker 3: in position to hopefully deliver also a great lineup and
Speaker 3: a great showcase next June. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that I read an article that someone pointed out is
Speaker 3: that it's interesting that this was a year that we
Speaker 3: didn't have some of the traditional heavy hitters from Xbox,
Speaker 3: like Halo, like Fortsa, And of course we've got teams
Speaker 3: working on those projects and we've got a lot of
Speaker 3: cool stuff to share when the time is right. But
Speaker 3: the fact that we deliver heard hopefully a critical, massive
Speaker 3: excitement and it didn't depend on those things that we
Speaker 3: historically go to. I think it's just a good indicator
Speaker 3: and a good sign that we're going to be able
Speaker 3: to can you know we've hit that stride and then
Speaker 3: we're going to be able to continue deliver it that
Speaker 3: cadence going forward, doing.
Speaker 2: In the Dark Ages, Gears of Work, et Ay, Fable,
Speaker 2: a lot of big IP, a lot of very beloved
Speaker 2: fan ip. Some were given release dates, some weren't, and
Speaker 2: some we just have a target of, like twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: And I wanted to know, you know the release date
Speaker 2: Jenga that goes on here and what you're holding back
Speaker 2: either because you don't know yet or because you are
Speaker 2: specifically waiting for other people to make choices like exactly
Speaker 2: when GTA six will be released next fall.
Speaker 3: Well, I think many across the industry. Of course you're
Speaker 3: going to plan around GTA six and we're all looking
Speaker 3: forward to that game, which you know should be amazing
Speaker 3: for us, excuse me, for us. I think the issue
Speaker 3: is as much making sure that we don't step on ourselves, right.
Speaker 3: We have a pretty big portfolio, We have a pretty
Speaker 3: big lineup through the fall and through the spring, and
Speaker 3: we certainly want to make sure that every game is
Speaker 3: given space and has got an opportunity to shine, and
Speaker 3: we don't end up overshadowing one game by launching it
Speaker 3: too close to another. So when we leave actual months
Speaker 3: and days of the month sort of open ended, that
Speaker 3: has as much to do with the fact that we
Speaker 3: are looking ahead and making sure that we do the
Speaker 3: right planning so that we're not getting in our own
Speaker 3: way right. Certainly, everybody in the industry wants to make
Speaker 3: sure that we don't land in the shadow of someone
Speaker 3: else's big release, But we just need to keep options
Speaker 3: open as we sort of look to optimize. How do
Speaker 3: we make sure that every game gets its appropriate day
Speaker 3: in the sun, And that's pretty important to us. The
Speaker 3: other thing is that we really want to make sure
Speaker 3: that when we declare a date that we're committed to that,
Speaker 3: and certainly within a year, within six months when we
Speaker 3: declare a date, you know, we want to get much
Speaker 3: better that we're really living up to that and we're
Speaker 3: accountable to that. You know, games, like a lot of entertainment,
Speaker 3: the further out you get, the harder it is to
Speaker 3: predict and you know, predict an actual date. So we
Speaker 3: just want to be in integrity that if something is
Speaker 3: further out than a year, that we're not trying to
Speaker 3: create sort of a false precision about when we can
Speaker 3: deliver that game. But conversely, the closer we get, we
Speaker 3: actually want to you know, we really want to be
Speaker 3: accountable to our fans and be accountable to the industry
Speaker 3: on when we're going to be able to ship.
Speaker 2: Going back to Black Op six, it was great to
Speaker 2: get to sit down with those guys here everything that
Speaker 2: they haven't been able to say before, and know what's
Speaker 2: been going on behind the scenes. One of the things
Speaker 2: that I discussed uh with them a little more was
Speaker 2: about intelligent play and about making it a little bit
Speaker 2: easier for people who are not used to call Black Ops,
Speaker 2: used to this kind of game in general, to play
Speaker 2: the game and to enter the game, and you and
Speaker 2: I talked a little bit about this already, but going
Speaker 2: into the idea of accessibility for new gamers and bringing
Speaker 2: in people while at the same time not making something
Speaker 2: too easy for people who are well versed in this game,
Speaker 2: for players who do not need that going in. I
Speaker 2: want to ask about that for Black Ops specifically, but
Speaker 2: also just how Microsoft is looking at that across its
Speaker 2: studios right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, certainly I would start high level. I mean,
Speaker 3: gaming is in such a different place in pop culture
Speaker 3: and entertainment and in the world than it was say
Speaker 3: five or ten years ago. You know, it's bigger, it's
Speaker 3: become more popular, it's certainly more accessible, more diverse than ever,
Speaker 3: and in many ways we compete directly with more what
Speaker 3: I would call traditional entertainment. I think the thing that
Speaker 3: we're all working on is how do we grow those
Speaker 3: audiences and how do we bring more people into existing franchises,
Speaker 3: And you know, you mentioned how are we doing that,
Speaker 3: you know, on a Call of Duty and on Black
Speaker 3: Ops six. It is a topic that also plays out
Speaker 3: with something like Minecraft and something we just celebrated the
Speaker 3: fifteen year anniversary this summer. And while Minecraft can be
Speaker 3: seen as visually simple and is very appealing. There are
Speaker 3: parts of it where there is still a fair barrier
Speaker 3: to entry if you've never played the game before. So
Speaker 3: I think all of our teams, including the Call of
Speaker 3: Duty team, are looking at how can we provide what
Speaker 3: I would call user adjustable, user customized on ramps that
Speaker 3: provide a way to get into the franchise. You know,
Speaker 3: franchises have been around for ten or twenty years. They
Speaker 3: sort of collect a lot of institutional sort of lore
Speaker 3: and a lot of institutional understanding about how to play
Speaker 3: the game, and at times it can be intimidating coming
Speaker 3: into a game, and that can be everything from game
Speaker 3: mechanics to making sure even that we do a very
Speaker 3: smart job of how we put together our multiplayer matches.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things that we use AI
Speaker 3: for is to make sure in a game like Years
Speaker 3: of War that if you're in a multiplayer game, you
Speaker 3: are matched up with someone who is an equal skill level.
Speaker 3: You know, there's nothing more frustrating to be new to
Speaker 3: a game. You get dumped into a multiplayer match with
Speaker 3: somebody and you just you know, you survived for a
Speaker 3: few seconds. That's not a person who is going to
Speaker 3: become a new fan of a franchise. So I think
Speaker 3: it's important for us, as you point out, to not
Speaker 3: compromise the existing game. We don't want to water it down.
Speaker 3: We want to make sure that we provide a game
Speaker 3: that existing fans love. But all of our teams are
Speaker 3: focused on providing these more broad on ramps to how
Speaker 3: we can grow audiences.
Speaker 2: I was very excited to see this Skyline Valley expansion
Speaker 2: coming for follow Out seventy six, but with the immense
Speaker 2: popularity of Amazon's Followed TV series, I had suspected there
Speaker 2: might be a new game in the works that you
Speaker 2: would announced. So I'd like to know the thought process
Speaker 2: and decision making that goes into deciding to build on
Speaker 2: an existing game versus put a new game in the works.
Speaker 2: Not that I don't think you don't have something going on,
Speaker 2: or at least announce what the what the life cycle
Speaker 2: is of a game essentially.
Speaker 3: Well, that is such an insightful question and is just
Speaker 3: I would say, one of the core pieces of art
Speaker 3: that we wrestle with in the game industry and in
Speaker 3: game design, which is, for example, you've got a game
Speaker 3: like Minecraft, at some point, do you continue to evolve
Speaker 3: Minecraft and build on it and expand it, or do
Speaker 3: you at some point say we're going to pause, stop
Speaker 3: and we're going to make Minecraft two point zero, for example. Now, clearly,
Speaker 3: in the case of Minecraft, we have continued to build
Speaker 3: and grow on it. A game like forts a Horizon five,
Speaker 3: you know, it is the fifth iteration of the series,
Speaker 3: So clearly we're committed to ongoing discrete iterations of that
Speaker 3: game and that franchise. But even within that franchise, we
Speaker 3: have ongoing updates with DLC new content, and at some
Speaker 3: point you make a decision that we've sort of built
Speaker 3: all the content for that iteration and we're now going
Speaker 3: to move on to sort of the next discrete turn
Speaker 3: of the crank. In the case of Fallout, one of
Speaker 3: the great things that happened to coincide with the show
Speaker 3: on Amazon, which is fantastic and they've been great partners,
Speaker 3: is that there are just a number of ways that
Speaker 3: you can engage with the Fallout franchise. Right there's not
Speaker 3: just one game. There's Fallout four, there's Fallout seventy six,
Speaker 3: there's ongoing content for all of those. You can even
Speaker 3: go all the way back to og Fallout one. There's
Speaker 3: Fallout in New Vegas, so much like a franchise like
Speaker 3: say Star Trek or a Mission Impossible or a Star Wars,
Speaker 3: just a lot of ways that you can engage. To
Speaker 3: your question about how do we line up a game
Speaker 3: with a movie, that is one thing that has gotten
Speaker 3: very different in the last five to ten years, given
Speaker 3: that both games and movies have such long production cycles.
Speaker 3: You know, a major triple A video game can take three,
Speaker 3: four or five years to put together. You know, movies
Speaker 3: are in development for a long time before they actually
Speaker 3: start shooting, and then they've got their own schedules. So
Speaker 3: I think that when we can get linear media that
Speaker 3: lines up with an existing franchise that provides a lot
Speaker 3: of ways for a new audience to engage, that's the
Speaker 3: big win. I think it's much harder and probably more
Speaker 3: risky to try to think five years into the future
Speaker 3: how you might sync up a new game with a
Speaker 3: new new movie or a new TV show.
Speaker 2: Talking about among the announcements made one that I found
Speaker 2: that kept coming and coming coming as the titles were
Speaker 2: announced was we'll be available day and date Game Pass.
Speaker 2: And that's a really big deal to have a new
Speaker 2: title available immediately to those subscribe to game Pass plans,
Speaker 2: So asking about that choice and what that means, and
Speaker 2: what that means for Xbox and Microsoft's overall strategy push
Speaker 2: in game Pass and pushing the subscription model.
Speaker 3: You know, it really is a core part of what
Speaker 3: I would just call our Xbox promise. Right in the
Speaker 3: Xbox promises to the players are that our first party games,
Speaker 3: the games that our internal studios make, that those are
Speaker 3: going to be available on day one in game Pass.
Speaker 3: Right that you're going to have the availability of what
Speaker 3: we call Xbox Play anywhere where those entitlements are, both
Speaker 3: on console and on PC. That we've got a commitment
Speaker 3: to letting you play where you want, on the devices
Speaker 3: you want, which is why we support cloud streaming in
Speaker 3: a number of ways. You know, why we're looking at
Speaker 3: games that expand to mobile, and that really is part
Speaker 3: of that core promise. So when we get all of
Speaker 3: our internal studios committed to launching day one into game Pass,
Speaker 3: it's really kind of part of that overall tapestry of
Speaker 3: what we see as our ongoing promise going forward is
Speaker 3: you know, what is what does it mean to be
Speaker 3: an Xbox player and what is the Xbox promise?
Speaker 2: Talking a little more about game Pass. I'd love to
Speaker 2: know our results you've been seeing there since adding Diablo
Speaker 2: for and how you maybe have seen those results inform
Speaker 2: what you're moving forward doing with the day and date results,
Speaker 2: what you're really looking for end quote. What is a
Speaker 2: success on game Pass for you all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, Diablo is an interesting one that we were
Speaker 3: watching because, of course it was a game that had
Speaker 3: previously launched right it had launched prior to the acquisition closing.
Speaker 3: But when we put the game into game Pass this
Speaker 3: past March, in terms of the number of hours and
Speaker 3: the number of players engaged, it was our biggest first
Speaker 3: party launch into game Pass ever. So what we saw
Speaker 3: was new players coming in, and we saw people coming
Speaker 3: in that had not played Diablo for So this was
Speaker 3: great for the franchise in terms of new players expanding
Speaker 3: that audience. And then we also saw, because of that
Speaker 3: new cohort of people coming in, overall engagement in the
Speaker 3: game going up. So that's sort of the best of
Speaker 3: both worlds for us, that we not only bring in
Speaker 3: new players, but that that influx of new players actually
Speaker 3: caused more excitement in the game and engagement across the
Speaker 3: board to go up. I think the number was roughly
Speaker 3: that we saw people playing over ten million hours in
Speaker 3: the game in the first ten days. So that is
Speaker 3: certainly something that we see as a success, But most importantly,
Speaker 3: I look at it as success for the game team.
Speaker 3: In other words, do they see it as being additive
Speaker 3: to what they're doing, do they see new players coming in,
Speaker 3: and do they see it generating growth and excitement in
Speaker 3: the franchise? And we certainly saw those things.
Speaker 2: Kind of opening it up to a little bit of
Speaker 2: a broader question about what marks a successful game for
Speaker 2: you all in general? What you see and you have
Speaker 2: games in different buckets, different areas, what is the measure
Speaker 2: of success or are there different measures based on the
Speaker 2: kind of game?
Speaker 3: Well, it really is unique to each game, and the
Speaker 3: underlying reason for that is that our portfolio covers such
Speaker 3: a diversity of game types and content. If you think
Speaker 3: about it, roughly, we have got three broad categories of content.
Speaker 3: I would say there are the sort of big pillars
Speaker 3: of games, the you know, the Call of Duty, There's Minecraft,
Speaker 3: you know, the Warcraft. Right then we've got games that
Speaker 3: I would say are our Triple A and sustained games,
Speaker 3: things like Sea of Thieves, things like forts a horizon
Speaker 3: that are predictable hits, are very ongoing games that have
Speaker 3: been successful like Elder Scrolls Online. Then there's a third category,
Speaker 3: which are games that are meant to push the art
Speaker 3: form forward, that are meant to show what our teams
Speaker 3: are capable of, right that bring brand Prestige two Xbox
Speaker 3: into game Pass, And I would put in that category
Speaker 3: smaller games like Pentiment and even hell Blade two that
Speaker 3: we just launched to you know, a lot of critical
Speaker 3: acclaim a number I think almost you know, a well
Speaker 3: over a dozen perfect scores for that game and really
Speaker 3: being called out as such a technical achievement. So within
Speaker 3: those categories of sort of the blockbuster pillars, the predictable hits,
Speaker 3: the frank, the ongoing franchises, and then the new ip
Speaker 3: and things that are meant to push forward the art form,
Speaker 3: each of those really have unique metrics in terms of
Speaker 3: how we measure success. You know, for a game like
Speaker 3: Call of Duty that is one of the biggest games
Speaker 3: on the planet where we make a significant investment in
Speaker 3: the development, they're going to have certain targets and certain
Speaker 3: goals of what we need, you know, to see for
Speaker 3: them to be successful. That's going to be different than
Speaker 3: a team like Ninja Theory that made a game like
Speaker 3: Helblad two with about one hundred people. Right, so every
Speaker 3: you know, every game is really looked at differently. But
Speaker 3: you know, we're committed to the teams and supporting them
Speaker 3: to make the best game they can. That's one of
Speaker 3: the first questions we ask is, you know, did they
Speaker 3: do the best that they're capable of doing? And I
Speaker 3: think in a lot of cases we can say that
Speaker 3: they did. And then are they supporting our devices? Are
Speaker 3: they supporting our services? And then are we again delivering
Speaker 3: back on what I would call that Xbox player promise?
Speaker 3: But there it's not a sort of fixed set of
Speaker 3: metrics that I could apply across such a broad portfolio.
Speaker 2: I'll be back with more from that after this break.
Speaker 2: Now that we've nerded out extensively about showcase, I would
Speaker 2: like to go back and just have you start a
Speaker 2: little bit by just breaking down what your day to
Speaker 2: day role is, how you got to this position.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I it's really a privilege. You know. I
Speaker 3: get to support the leaders who lead our studios and
Speaker 3: business units, which are you know, roughly broken down as
Speaker 3: Xbox Game studios, which are mostly based that leadership here
Speaker 3: in Redmond, and that includes things like Halo and Forts
Speaker 3: and Sea of Thieves and our smaller studios like Double
Speaker 3: Fine and come Pulsion Games. So there's Xbox Game Studios,
Speaker 3: then Zenemax Bethesda, another grouping of course, which includes you know,
Speaker 3: Todd Howard and his team who delivered Starfield and Elder
Speaker 3: Scrolls Online, the team making Indiana Jones the Great Circle.
Speaker 3: And then we've got uh, you know, Activision, which is
Speaker 3: really the sort of overall arching group for Call of Duty.
Speaker 3: Then we've got Blizzard, and then we've got King. So
Speaker 3: then in addition to that, really sort of standing on
Speaker 3: its own is one of those sort of studio groups
Speaker 3: also as a Minecraft. So those six groupings of our
Speaker 3: content team each have leaders over them, and our leadership
Speaker 3: approach and our leadership structure is to put very empowered,
Speaker 3: creative oriented leaders in charge of each of those six
Speaker 3: business units as we call them. And within those business units,
Speaker 3: particularly around Xbox Game Studios and Zenemax Bethesda, they're really
Speaker 3: oriented around a studio system where each of those studios
Speaker 3: has a very empowered creative and business leads. So my
Speaker 3: day to day is really making sure that they're supported,
Speaker 3: that they feel that they've got what they need to
Speaker 3: be successful. To provide a little bit of an interface
Speaker 3: between their world, which is about making games back to
Speaker 3: the broader Microsoft and Xbox world, and to make sure
Speaker 3: that the things that we're doing as a first party
Speaker 3: content group are aligned with Sarah Bond's team. Sarah runs
Speaker 3: our platform and game pass teams and making sure that
Speaker 3: we're in sync and in harmony in terms of how
Speaker 3: we help support the platform and vice versa. It really
Speaker 3: is a privilege. We are just blessed with great leaders
Speaker 3: there who have got, you know, decades of combined experience
Speaker 3: across all of their leadership teams, and it really is,
Speaker 3: you know, what makes things go. I joined Xbox in
Speaker 3: twenty ten and started out by working on bringing some
Speaker 3: of the Xbox and content over to mobile and particularly
Speaker 3: over to Windows. So when we were first working with
Speaker 3: Windows and having a game store within there, and then
Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen for four years got to lead Minecraft directly,
Speaker 3: which is really just an amazing experience. I learned so much,
Speaker 3: just amazing folks with the studio in Stockholm and another
Speaker 3: group here in Redmond, and then in twenty eighteen started
Speaker 3: taking on more and more of a role of leading
Speaker 3: our first party games, and before that quite a long stint.
Speaker 3: This is actually only the second job I've ever had.
Speaker 3: The first job that I ever had was coming right
Speaker 3: out of university and starting in a place in Chicago
Speaker 3: called Midway Games, where I had the great fortune to
Speaker 3: work with the teams that made games like Mortal Kombat
Speaker 3: and Nbajam and NFL Blitz, And consider myself very lucky
Speaker 3: to still be friends with many of those folks and
Speaker 3: always take great pride that under Warner Brothers, you know,
Speaker 3: a game like Mortal Kombat here thirty years later is
Speaker 3: still going strong as a franchise.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously you are a huge part of the
Speaker 2: oversight in the post acquisition of Activision Lizard. I want
Speaker 2: you to know, you know, kind of what things look
Speaker 2: like at the moment if the dust has settled. Microsoft
Speaker 2: have not been immune to the same situation that's happened
Speaker 2: across the gaming industry where there have been layoffs. But
Speaker 2: Microsoft was the one at the time who was in
Speaker 2: the middle of a giant merger, so it was in
Speaker 2: a different position at the same time as that was happening.
Speaker 2: So I don't know what internally things look like right now,
Speaker 2: But based on the showcase, it seems like things are
Speaker 2: are calmer, It seems like things are organized, But I
Speaker 2: don't know if we can expect any more changes there
Speaker 2: what it looks like right now for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really a bit of two stories. First and foremost,
Speaker 3: our main focus is to make sure that the game
Speaker 3: teams have what they need, that they feel supported, that
Speaker 3: we as Xbox and we and as Microsoft are being additive,
Speaker 3: and that they feel like they're being set up to
Speaker 3: do their best work with the minimal amount of distractions.
Speaker 3: And that is a big part of my focus, which
Speaker 3: is providing again a bit of that interface to make
Speaker 3: sure that we are doing a proper business integration, that
Speaker 3: we're integrating on the topics like security and making sure
Speaker 3: that we can all share files back and forth, okay,
Speaker 3: you know, and making sure that all the financial systems
Speaker 3: get integrated. You know, I work with a lot of
Speaker 3: great teams that are focused on that, and that work
Speaker 3: needs to go on. And you know, as you would
Speaker 3: expect for two very large organizations coming together, there's just
Speaker 3: a lot of activity there that we're still in the
Speaker 3: middle of. But I would hope that the studios report
Speaker 3: that the very first thing that we focused on, and
Speaker 3: the thing that is the most important, is making sure
Speaker 3: that those studios feel stable, that they've got what they
Speaker 3: need to ship games, and that we're trying to minimize
Speaker 3: any distractions for them, you know. And one of the
Speaker 3: things that we're focused on, there's a lot of interest
Speaker 3: between the studios and getting connected, right how can they
Speaker 3: talk to each other, how can we start to possibly
Speaker 3: share technology we're appropriate across our teams, And you know,
Speaker 3: we're an organization of close to seventeen thousand people now,
Speaker 3: one of the biggest content organizations on the planet, and
Speaker 3: it's just going to take some time to get that
Speaker 3: infrastructure in place. And I appreciate your good words on
Speaker 3: the showcase, and it's good to see that that's how
Speaker 3: it's perceived externally. I think for us, we're very focused
Speaker 3: on making sure that now we can turn around and
Speaker 3: deliver on the promise that we made this weekend on
Speaker 3: what we showed, and certainly I've got a lot of
Speaker 3: work to do to make sure we ship great games
Speaker 3: in the next twelve months.
Speaker 2: One aspect that I know was hard was the closure.
Speaker 2: I mean, any closures are upsetting, but fans took the
Speaker 2: closure of Tango pretty hard, and I want to know
Speaker 2: in that case, in particular, what the reasoning was and
Speaker 2: if there was any talks of shopping and around to
Speaker 2: other potential buyers. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, obviously, any time that we've got to
Speaker 3: do something like that, it's difficult, right. It is first
Speaker 3: and foremost difficult on the people who are affected. We
Speaker 3: put a lot of energy into making sure that we
Speaker 3: give full support to everybody who is impacted by something
Speaker 3: like that through severance and other things. You know, those
Speaker 3: decisions are never made lightly, they're not made quickly, and
Speaker 3: there are a lot of people and processes and oversight
Speaker 3: to make sure that we're making you know, a good
Speaker 3: decision there, and they're just they're always difficult, and the
Speaker 3: energy goes into making sure that we are supporting the
Speaker 3: people that are impacted and you know, really making sure
Speaker 3: that they're taken care of. I won't get into the
Speaker 3: real sort of nitty gritty details on you know, what
Speaker 3: went into the decision, mostly out of respect for the
Speaker 3: people there, just because you know, they There was a
Speaker 3: lot of work that went into delivering Hi Fi Rush,
Speaker 3: which was a great game and you know did well
Speaker 3: for us. I think the thing to be considered is
Speaker 3: that for us, it's as much such a forward looking
Speaker 3: situation as much as it is looking back at one
Speaker 3: certain game. You know, there are a lot of things
Speaker 3: that go into success for a game. You know, what
Speaker 3: leadership do you have, what creative leadership do you have?
Speaker 3: Is the team the same team that shipped something successful previously?
Speaker 3: And we have to look at all of those things
Speaker 3: together and then ask ourselves are we set up for
Speaker 3: success going forward? And while there may have been factors
Speaker 3: and situations that previously led to success, they may not
Speaker 3: all still be in place as you look at what
Speaker 3: you're doing going forward. And you know, with many of
Speaker 3: our studios, we try to look at options. I think,
Speaker 3: you know an example, we recently had Toys for Bob
Speaker 3: Studio that was previously working on Call of Duty titles
Speaker 3: go back out and become a new independent studio. And
Speaker 3: you know, I think we've announced that we've got a
Speaker 3: publishing deal with them, and we'll share more about that
Speaker 3: when it's important. I think back to a studio called
Speaker 3: Twisted Pixel in Texas that we acquired and then for
Speaker 3: a sort of change in goals, it wasn't a perfect
Speaker 3: match anymore, but that studio today is still thriving. We
Speaker 3: wanted to set them up for success. So we absolutely
Speaker 3: look at what the possible business options are to keep
Speaker 3: a studio open or to keep you know, perhaps have
Speaker 3: it change hands. And it's just one of the things,
Speaker 3: of course, that we look at across the board. Sometimes
Speaker 3: those things come together, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 2: With one of the new acquisitions with Blizzard, you have
Speaker 2: a very big opportunity this year to be part of
Speaker 2: the twentieth anniversary of something with World of Warcraft, so
Speaker 2: that you all did not build, but you own it
Speaker 2: now and you're part of it. And so I want
Speaker 2: to know how something like that works. If you tell
Speaker 2: Jon and the team at Blizzard, like Gopher, whatever you
Speaker 2: guys want to do, this is your twentieth birthday, We're
Speaker 2: just here to help. Or if you have thoughts and
Speaker 2: you have ideas and you want to push that as
Speaker 2: much as.
Speaker 3: Possible, well, first I just say, how lucky are we
Speaker 3: that we have so many of these g as that
Speaker 3: we get to celebrate these you know, anniversaries, and really
Speaker 3: they are celebrations for the fans, right, I was lucky
Speaker 3: enough to be part of the five year, ten year,
Speaker 3: and now fifteen year anniversary for something like Minecraft firsthand.
Speaker 3: And you know how lucky are we now that we
Speaker 3: get to sort of help celebrate with the fans the
Speaker 3: twentieth anniversary of something at Blizzard. So first and foremost,
Speaker 3: I think Blizzard is going to tell us what they
Speaker 3: want to do, you know, and it's going to be
Speaker 3: my job to go figure out how we can pay
Speaker 3: for it, just paint blunt. But you know, nobody knows
Speaker 3: those fans better, nobody knows that community better than Blizzard,
Speaker 3: and I think that they're going to be the ones
Speaker 3: that will, you know, really guide us on what's appropriate
Speaker 3: and what will build the excitement and first, you know,
Speaker 3: mostly be a celebration for the fans. You know, that's
Speaker 3: how we come at these things, whether we're talking about
Speaker 3: just the longevity of something like Elder Scrolls Online or
Speaker 3: whether it's Minecraft or even you know, how we look
Speaker 3: at how we celebrate something of course that is now
Speaker 3: multi decades in existence, like a World of Warcraft.
Speaker 2: I'd love to know if you can speak a little
Speaker 2: bit about what you've seen so far the results of
Speaker 2: bringing the first four games to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation
Speaker 2: and what titles you might be thinking of doing that
Speaker 2: with next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we you know, we really set up those four games,
Speaker 3: and if you look at the games that we picked,
Speaker 3: it might seem as maybe a bit of a you know,
Speaker 3: a grab bag of an odd assortment, but it really
Speaker 3: was set up and designed so that we could test
Speaker 3: a variety of content and see specifically, you know, what
Speaker 3: the reception would be for that content. And you know,
Speaker 3: also in some cases we have got teams like the
Speaker 3: Minecraft team or like the Call of Duty team that
Speaker 3: have been shipping multi platform for literally decades, and then
Speaker 3: we've got other teams or that's a new muscle to build.
Speaker 3: So we had some sort of business experiments that we
Speaker 3: wanted to run, and we also just mechanically wanted to
Speaker 3: start to build that muscle and see what was involved.
Speaker 3: So some of the smaller games like Grounded, like Pentiment,
Speaker 3: like High Fi Rush. I would say that it was
Speaker 3: great to see some of the positive review scores and
Speaker 3: great to see some of the positive fan reception, but
Speaker 3: the one where we really focused with support and we
Speaker 3: went out and promoted with Sea of Thieves and we
Speaker 3: have been really pleased with what we've seen on Sea
Speaker 3: of Thieves. You know, just in terms of some things
Speaker 3: that I can share that we're encouraging to us is
Speaker 3: that when we launched Sea of Thieves on PlayStation five,
Speaker 3: we saw an uptick in engagement on Xbox and on PC.
Speaker 3: So again there's this thing where you've got more people
Speaker 3: coming into the franchise, which causes more excitement, which actually
Speaker 3: grows the franchise overall, which, if you just really want
Speaker 3: to be sort of direct about it from a business
Speaker 3: point of view, allows us to continue to reinvest in
Speaker 3: that franchise and continue to grow it. So that was
Speaker 3: sort of one of the first things that we wanted
Speaker 3: to see. Another really interesting encouraging stat is that about
Speaker 3: half the people that we saw playing on PlayStation we're
Speaker 3: playing with people on other platforms. So this is about
Speaker 3: expanding that community. It's one of the things it's core
Speaker 3: to our Xbox promise about letting people play where they
Speaker 3: want to play, with the people they want to play
Speaker 3: with on the devices they play with, and it's encouraging
Speaker 3: that we didn't see sort of a vertically insulated community there.
Speaker 3: That the work that the team had put into being
Speaker 3: best in class in terms of cross platform play really
Speaker 3: paid off because we saw people engaging kind of outside
Speaker 3: their own device ecosystem, which was great. The other thing
Speaker 3: is it just it brought new players into Sea Off Thieves, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of the real goals that all of
Speaker 3: our franchises have, and I think we all have across
Speaker 3: the industry right now, is how do we grow? And
Speaker 3: you know, that was really great to see that it
Speaker 3: was bringing in new players that had never played CfDS before.
Speaker 3: So I think we consider that a success. You know,
Speaker 3: we all continue to make those decisions individually on a
Speaker 3: case by case basis. We are absolutely committed to having
Speaker 3: launch exclusives on Xbox. You know, it's part of our
Speaker 3: core promise, and we want to continue to bring our
Speaker 3: games to more players on more devices going forward, and
Speaker 3: we certainly have got a lot of experience with that
Speaker 3: with things that have just historically been on multiplatforms for
Speaker 3: so long.
Speaker 2: I have just one more for you and closing, which
Speaker 2: kind of goes off that you know. You know that
Speaker 2: I straddled the TV and video game world, and one
Speaker 2: thing we've been seeing a lot of recently is bundling
Speaker 2: and bundling and streaming in a way that looks a
Speaker 2: lot like cable. It looks a lot like cable always
Speaker 2: BLUs so on. You know, from your side on the
Speaker 2: gaming side, when you look at what gaming can do,
Speaker 2: and you look at how you are looking to work
Speaker 2: with Nintendo and with PlayStation in these new ways, and
Speaker 2: what that means for platforms, if you see something similar
Speaker 2: happening on the gaming side, with like walls breaking down
Speaker 2: a little bit, and what that could mean, what you
Speaker 2: think you would do and what you might never do.
Speaker 3: Still, yeah, well, obviously I can't speak on behalf of
Speaker 3: Sony or Nintendo, but I'll say in each case, we
Speaker 3: just have great working relationships with the teams at Sony
Speaker 3: and Nintendo, right. I mean again, our portfolio consists of
Speaker 3: games that have shipped on those platforms you know, for
Speaker 3: ten fifteen years, right, And that doesn't happen without a
Speaker 3: great partnership with them, and so we've got a great
Speaker 3: working relationship. I think that as you point out that
Speaker 3: as gaming becomes a bigger part of pop culture, as
Speaker 3: the number of gamers on the planet you know, hits
Speaker 3: two billion, three billion and continues to grow, that it's
Speaker 3: inevitable that we're going to see that content sort of
Speaker 3: seeks to be everywhere right, and that we're going to
Speaker 3: probably see some some blending across the sort of boundaries
Speaker 3: and across the sort of differences that maybe have existed historically.
Speaker 3: For us, it really comes down to maintaining that player
Speaker 3: first focus, right. We want to be where the players are.
Speaker 3: You know, a device the Xbox will always be core
Speaker 3: to what we do. The console's foundational to what we do.
Speaker 3: But you know, going all the way back to twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, when we started supporting shipping all of our
Speaker 3: games day and date on PC, when we started branching
Speaker 3: out into things like cloud streaming, which allows you to
Speaker 3: really take your game anywhere, focusing on making sure we
Speaker 3: get things right like cloud saves. You know, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest sort of like just pieces of friction right
Speaker 3: now is it's really possible to get yourself kind of
Speaker 3: caught in a corner where you start a game on
Speaker 3: one service and then you want to play the same game,
Speaker 3: but you're on a different service and your save data
Speaker 3: doesn't come over, and you're product It's just we want
Speaker 3: to we're very committed to getting that all squared away.
Speaker 3: Some of our games do it really well. In other places,
Speaker 3: We've got some work to do, so I think what
Speaker 3: we will, you know, see more of that going forward.
Speaker 3: You know what the future holds for those trends, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't I have that crystal ball. I do know
Speaker 3: that we're going to continue to follow our fans, follow
Speaker 3: our players where they want to be, and as gaming
Speaker 3: grows to be something that is right there side by
Speaker 3: side with more traditional entertainment like music and movies and TV,
Speaker 3: we'll probably see some of the same things start to
Speaker 3: happen in gaming that you've seen the last ten years
Speaker 3: in linear media.
Speaker 2: Matt, it was a pleasure having you today. I so
Speaker 2: appreciate it. It was a great way to wrap up showcase.
Speaker 2: So thank you for taking the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to talk and it's been great.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts
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