Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has hired industry analyst Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer, handing the man behind the widely-read State of Video Gaming report the job of turning around Microsoft's flagging console business.
The appointment, made in an internal memo on May 20 and first reported by The Verge and The Game Business, is the second leadership reshuffle at Xbox in a matter of weeks. Ball will report directly to Sharma. Microsoft is also bringing in Scott Van Vliet, the company's former corporate VP of Azure OpenAI and AI infrastructure, as Xbox's new chief technology officer. Chris Schnakenberg has been promoted to corporate VP of partnerships and business development.
Ball's Background and Role
Ball was already inside the tent, and has been advising Sharma since day 10 of her roughly 90-day tenure. He told Bloomberg the offer to formally join was "irresistible." His pitch was personal: "thousands of memories in specific basements playing Halo, playing Gears of War." The brief, in his own words, is reviving storied franchises and strengthening a console business hit by the global memory crunch, a slow cadence of updates, and a shrinking case for choosing Xbox over PlayStation or the Switch 2.
Before Microsoft, Ball was CEO of advisory firm Epyllion and wrote the 2022 book The Metaverse. He has held strategy roles at Amazon Studios, Otter Media, Illumination and Accenture. At Amazon, he helped shape Prime Video's bet on tentpoles like Fallout, The Boys and Rings of Power.
Van Vliet's Appointment and Project Helix
Van Vliet's job is faster product development, but Project Helix stays with Sharma. Van Vliet brings two decades at Microsoft, plus stints on Amazon's Fire TV team and toymaker Mattel's digital play unit. Sharma noted he has been on Xbox Live since the original 2002 beta. He will work on the product development pipeline, but hardware, the next-gen Project Helix console and the console OS will keep reporting to Sharma. Van Vliet formally starts after the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7.
Sharma's Vision
Sharma said the changes are about "strengthening our foundation by creating more clarity and improving execution," and signalled more are on the way.
