Steve Ballmer Replaces Don Mattrick As Xbox One Chief

Edsj writes "While Don Mattrick leaves Microsoft to work at Zynga, Steve Ballmer announces that, from now on, he will be directly in charge of the Xbox One division as quoted: 'Don's directs will report to me and will continue to drive the day-to-day business as a team, particularly focused on shipping Xbox One this holiday.'"

Comments

Well,

[cheddarlump]

There goes the xbox.

Re:Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballmer post? Guess we'll be needing these:

Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers.

Re:Well,

[Xest]

Quite the opposite I think.

If you look at what happened with the DRM fiasco, we had Don insulting his customers saying basically that DRM was for their own good but also importantly that it couldn't be removed, then within a couple of days you had it removed including detail of the implications that had on other systems and features which is not a mere couple of days work to evaluate properly.

I suspect what happened is that Sony did their unveil, Don refusing to admit he was wrong (because he hates consumers, and is an arrogant dick, hence why Zynga is perfect for him) carried on parroting the DRM line whilst his reports knew that this was a major problem, bypassed Don because he was a waste of space and went straight to Ballmer to say "Let us remove this or we're done", Ballmer gave permission, they sent to work on it and had a good week to do it whilst Don was still oblivious, or knew full well, but was trying to fight his corner internally. Either way he obviously lost eventually.

Hence why he has now gone, because he was basically undermined by those under him who knew far better than him what the customer wanted and what strategy was required not to completely destroy their product before it was even released.

This is also I suspect why they're not replacing him, because his reports probably knew better what made a good product than he did, hence why they may as well report directly to Ballmer and cut out the idiot in the middle.

Goodbye Don, you wont be missed, EA's most awful DRM regime period, overseeing Microsoft's worst XBox ideas, Zynga, you're an example of everything that's wrong with the games industry. It's nice to see you've finally ended up somewhere that deserves you and that you deserve to be at.

Re:Well,

[plover]

Ballmer post? Guess we'll be needing these:

Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers.

Don't forget: Chair! Chair!

Re:Well,

[UnknowingFool]

Or maybe Mattrick was a scapegoat and was doing what he was told to do. When he saw what was happening at MS, he looked for a way out. Either way this is another problem that happened on Ballmer's watch.

Re:Well,

[JDG1980]

Cutting out underperforming middle management and flattening the hierarchy is not a new idea in business. It can work well, but it relies on the person at the top being competent, hardworking, and flexible. Suffice to say that the events of the past few years indicate Ballmer might not be up to the job.

Re:Well,

[Xest]

It's hard to imagine Mattrick was a scapegoat given that he implicated himself by defending so rabidly the DRM policies in interviews to the extent of insulting customers. I very much doubt his orders were "Don, go make a dick of yourself in public".

I'm pretty sure he managed that all by himself.

Re:Well,

[TWiTfan]

Or maybe Mattrick was a scapegoat and was doing what he was told to do.

That might be reasonable, if it weren't for the fact that Mattrick was in charge of the Xbox division and answered only to Steve Ballmer (who doesn't have a rep of micromanaging).

No, Mattrick's many mistakes were Mattrick's and no one else's.

Re:Well,

[Xest]

I don't think Ballmer is bad in every way, I think there are some teams he seems to have recognised know what they're on about and so he just leaves alone for the most part. Windows Server and SQL Server for example have just continued to get better.

I think Ballmer's flaw is that he has no vision, whilst Steve Jobs knew a good product when he saw one and knew when resources needed to be poured into it, and also knew when a product was a lost cause and knew when to axe it I don't think Ballmer is capable of that.

In other words I think Microsoft's product success (like Kinect) happen in spite of Ballmer, rather than because of the support of him, but it doesn't mean that impressive products can't get through and tried and tested products can't just continue to improve when he just leaves them alone. It's possible he'll just take a hands off approach with the XBox One now.

Or in other words I think Ballmer is a relatively passive leader, he doesn't have the drive to really fire up Microsoft and make it move, but he doesn't have the competence to axe bad ideas either. Microsoft nowadays strikes me as being somewhat in zombie mode with some departments coming up with good ideas and getting them through all by themselves without any help from leadership and other departments coming up with awful ideas (Windows 8 Metro) and pushing them through with no real leadership opposition either.

Still I may be wrong, there are people here who work at Microsoft, maybe they can give their thoughts and explain it even if anonymously.

Re:Well,

[RogueyWon]

Yes, this feels like a case of emergency damage limitation. After a period in the mid-point of the current console cycle where things seemed to be going their way, Microsoft have had a fairly poor late cycle (unpopular 3rd-gen dashboard, a drought of major exclusives, overtaken by the PS3 in global installed-base stakes). This all culminated in a very difficult lead-up to E3 and an absolute disaster at E3 itself.

The company went in the wrong direction with always-online DRM and, arguably worse, didn't have a convincing story to tell on why it was going that direction in the first place. Admittedly, they probably got dumped on by some of their industry partners. In particular, EA claiming that they never wanted always-online DRM and denying that they had anything to do with its inclusion in the XBone was reminiscent of a small child frantically wiping cake-crumbs off his mouth while emphatically denying that he raided the fridge to steal the cake. But ultimately, whatever pressure there was on MS from publishers to go the always-online route, Sony recognised that it was a better long term strategy to side with the customers instead. MS's about-turn since E3 is welcome, but it hasn't helped the company's reputation.

And reptuation is probably what this is about. Not so much reputation with the general public, but reputation with shareholders. From its early days as a long-shot cash-hungry investment, the Xbox line has become a big part of MS's business. With the Windows side of the business not doing very much and with the company's attempts to get into the phone and tablet market not going very far, annual reports have shown that Xbox and Office are basically the two big growth areas in Microsoft.

On the day of E3 it looked like MS was about to commit suicide in one of those two areas. Shareholders will not have liked that. And while the general gaming public has welcomed MS's u-turn since then, shareholders will have liked it even less. Why? Because it smacks of confusion and a lack of a strategy. If MS had stood firm, then at least shareholders might have clung to the belief that the board knew what it was doing here and would be proved right in the long run. With a u-turn, it seems that the executive team has been making decisions that it doesn't even believe in itself.

So now, Ballmer (who, rather oddly, still enjoys a lot of shareholder confidence) steps in personally to provide reassurance that the company recognises it has a problem and is getting a strategy in place to fix it.

If the games industry in particular (and the tech sector in particular) had smarter and more in-touch shareholders, then a lot of executive teams would be getting very uncomfortable. However, there seems to be little chance of that happening any time soon.

Re:Well,

[Xest]

I think you're right about DRM being put in originally somewhat at the behest of companies like EA. Microsoft has bagged itself a lot more exclusives and a lot more big names this time round at it's launch than Sony and I have no doubt that that was part of a deal on their DRM policy. Where that leaves them now with said deals I've no idea - it's also quite possible the companies themselves realised that if they forced Microsoft to keep the DRM as part of said deals that there'd be no installed console base to even sell their exclusive titles on in the first place. It's possible that they were part of the u-turn themselves if this were the case.

Re:Well,

[SerpentMage]

Completely wrong IMO. Ballmer is a sales person plain and simple. He can sell anything to anybody. I agree he has no vision, and therein lies the problem. He takes ideas from others and tries to add them to Microsoft. Here are examples under Ballmer's watch:

1) Oh oh shiny toy called Java, must have -> .NET
2) Oh oh shiny toy called Flash, must have -> Silverlight
3) Oh oh shiny toy called Mobile, must have -> Windows 8
4) Oh oh shiny toy called Objective C, must have -> "refocusing on C++, and throwing .NET under the bus"
5) Oh oh shiny toy called Search Engine, must have -> Bing
6) Oh oh shiny toy called Online docs, must have -> Office 365
7) Oh oh shiny toy called JavaScript HTML, must have -> WinRT
8) Oh oh shiny toy called cloud computing (AWS), must have -> Azure

I know there are more, but Ballmer sees a shiny toy and like a pin the tail on the donkey game adds it to Microsoft products. Yet the problem is that it is second rate and people just don't use it. Microsoft has become a massive laggard in new ideas and new technologies. Granted they were not that innovative to begin with, but at least back then they did do something interesting things like Office (it used to be individual apps that did not work together), COM/OLE, or even Windows NT, and drivers. Ironically people don't give Microsoft credit for making the driver architecture work. Before Windows, drivers were a bleeding pain in the arse. Sure there were ideas on unifying, but Windows actually made it work effeciently.

Re:Well,

[UnknowingFool]

I think Ballmer's flaw is that he has no vision, whilst Steve Jobs knew a good product when he saw one and knew when resources needed to be poured into it, and also knew when a product was a lost cause and knew when to axe it I don't think Ballmer is capable of that.

Steve Jobs also used Apple products and always had a hand in design. While they could be little things that mattered (like iPod syncing upon attaching the cable) to more trivial items (lack of screws), everyone knew Jobs was in charge and he was an asshole when he didn't get his way. With Ballmer it doesn't seem he's involved at all with key decisions. Anyone who tried to use Win 8 on desktop would have seen that using a tablet interface on a desktop was bound to cause user rebellion.

Re:Well,

[UnknowingFool]

Ask consumers what they think of Windows: At best they are neutral about it. Companies use it because they must. I wouldn't say consumers clamor for Windows; they get it when they buy a computer. Now Office probably has better appeal but most consumers don't use it other than at work.

Re:Well,

[NFN_NLN]

It's hard to imagine Mattrick was a scapegoat given that he implicated himself by defending so rabidly the DRM policies in interviews to the extent of insulting customers. I very much doubt his orders were "Don, go make a dick of yourself in public".

I think we can all agree we've coined the new term: "scapedick" :)

scapegoat - In modern usage a scapegoat is an individual, group, or country singled out for unmerited negative treatment or blame.
scapedick - An individual, group or country singled out for unmerited negative treatment or blame; then accepting the blame, and overly going along with the plan against them to the point of looking like a dick

Re:Well,

[jandrese]

Microsoft just can't seem to find a happy place with DRM. They saw the iPod and said "we can do that, only better because you'll be able to share the music!" That sounded great, but then the reality set in that they would have to implement some incredibly onerous DRM to appease the record labels who had just spent the last decade with brown pants after they saw how easy it was to share music digitally. This meant that even though the Zune technically had more features than an iPod, the DRM was also up and in your face constantly unlike the iPod, causing people to resent your product. The best DRM is the one you don't notice.

And then Apple removed DRM from the iTunes Music Store and it was game over.

This is also a case where Microsoft's strategy of always going second backfired. Normally it allows them to avoid risky maneuvers by letting other companies test the waters so Microsoft only jumps in once they're sure it is safe. However, this meant that a great many potential customers already had a ton of music in iTunes and didn't want to leave that behind just to use a product that was pretty much the same as the one they already had.

Re:Well,

[drinkypoo]

DOS was crap, dude

It was a hell of a lot better for the desktop than CP/M.

Re:Well,

[gorzek]

In other words, Microsoft's problem over (at least) the past decade is that they're no longer a market leader. They no longer get to dictate which way the market goes. Used to be, whatever they put out the door--Windows, Office, etc.--people snapped it up and got on board. Now? Windows 8 sparked rebellion. Their mobile operating systems have been aborted and reborn so many times users are gun shy about giving them another try (to say nothing of how ultimately saturated the smartphone market is anyway.) And now they've managed to burn up much of the goodwill they built with the Xbox division by having such a disastrous showing at E3. Again, they were left following what a superior competitor put on the table, rather than anticipating what the market would want and offering it before anyone else did.

Admittedly, that's a very hard thing to do, but you'd think a company as large as MS, with so many talented people, and with such vast resources, could do a lot better than they have. But then vision and leadership come from the top. It's what made Apple work so well for so long. As noted elsewhere, Ballmer is not and never has been a visionary. I have no doubt he's a competent manager and salesman--he might even be great at those roles--but a CEO has to offer a clear, unifying vision to motivate everyone under him, and MS' vision has been so disjoint and erratic over the past decade or more as to be no vision at all. It's become a company of "me too"-ing.

Re:Well,

[steelfood]

back then they did do something interesting things

That's probably because all the real innovators they swiped from DEC for NT are no longer around or heavily involved in any new projects.

Re:Well,

[Anubis IV]

Microsoft has bagged itself a lot more exclusives and a lot more big names this time round at it's launch than Sony...

I've heard this line repeated a few times, and I believed it to be true as well when I heard the announcements about the DRM, since catering to third-party publishers was the only rational explanation I could come up with, but all of the evidence I've seen so far seems to indicate that Microsoft actually didn't manage to secure that many exclusives from third-party publishers. In fact, compared to Sony, they're nowhere close. For instance, sort the lists at the following links according to the "Exclusive" column:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_One_games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_4_games

At the time of this post, the numbers break down as:
XBO - 4 exclusives from publishers besides Microsoft (EA's Titanfall is the only major title of those)
PS4 - 25ish* exclusives from publishers besides Sony (including games from Atlus, Blizzard, Capcom, Digital Extremes, and Square-Enix)

If Microsoft bit the DRM bullet in order to win exclusives from third-party publishers, they have yet to show evidence that their plan bore any fruit. That said, they did manage to win a number of exclusives from third-party developers by publishing the games under their Microsoft Studios umbrella, but since they're publishing those themselves, they wouldn't have had any pressure from outside sources to introduce DRM of the sort they did, leaving me right back where I started: confused about what their motivation for the DRM was in the first place.

* The number has "ish" on it because there are 24 definite exclusives with 3 more that have publishers labeled as TBA.

Re:Well,

[Grishnakh]

Slashdot has decided that Ballmer is the physical incarnation of all that is evil and malicious in the computing world.

Don't be ridiculous. Ballmer is far too incompetent and too much of a buffoon to have such a reputation.

Re:Well,

[Zalbik]

True, but ask consumers what they think of any operating system: At best they are neutral about it.

This is the whole problem with linux on the desktop. Geeks expect people to want to us a computer, and to enjoy the sheer thrill of having that amount of technology under their control.

Regular users look at a computer as a necessary evil, with about as much control as they'd have riding an elephant. They don't care about the tech, they care about the result.

I believe as far as most customers are concerned, there are no good operating systems...there are just ones they are more familiar with and ones they are less familiar with.

It will be interesting though. The office, windows, and server product divisions really could be run by a magic 8-ball without much impact. Ballmer has shown little ability to get Microsoft to innovate successfully (windows phone, Office 365)...so it will be interesting to see what he does with a very consumer oriented product like the XBox.

Ballmer to the rescue!

[meowgoesthecat]

...somewhere, the Sony executives just let out a chuckle.

Reorg

[recoiledsnake]

A major reorg of MS is imminent, hence Ballmer doesn't want to reveal the real head yet and asked them to report to him for the time being. Tired of Slashdot's misleading and biased headlines and summary.

Re:Reorg

[recoiledsnake]

You have absolutely no clue how big reorganizations are handled in big companies. First everything is done in secret as much as possible with the fewest people knowing. Then each person is called to the CEOs Office and informed about the reorg. Things do leak, but revealing rumors and the CEOs hand early causes damage. Do things any differently(letting people know from the media or other employees) and it's going to cause a lot of bad blood and bad morale on top of those caused by the decisions themselves. The process is the same in almost all organizations including Google, so I don't know what you're foaming at the mouth for.

MS, according to you, is in such a state of disarray that Ballmer cannot reveal the real head of Xbox, but instead has to step in temporarily??? And we expect that pending reorg to accomplish what, exactly???

This reorg is just not just about switching heads, it about reorganizations the divisions themselves. There may not be a Xbox division at all and instead may be merged into a new hardware division along with Surface etc.

Xbox division employees better be careful

[JDG1980]

Look out for flying chairs!

First new XBox One game? Chair Launcher

[kannibal_klown]

The world is invaded by aliens, the country is in shambles...

There's only one weapon that can save you now: the might CHAIR

Throw chairs at your enemies and defend your planet. Customize and purchase new chairs: from the basic metal folding chair to the antique wingback

Coming to a store near you in 2014

Deja vu?

[Kwpolska]

Steven Sinofsky, the moron responsible for Windows 8, left Microsoft a very short while after releasing Windows 8. We have a quite similar scenario here, save for the quit happening a bit earlier, but still after shit hit the fan.

The title is misleading

[Skiron]

It should be eXboss

Re:Why hasn't the board fired Ballmer?

[Tridus]

The stock has moved around within a given range without really growing out of it for what, ten years now?

Besides, this short term thinking is what makes companies fail in the long run. Ballmer's job has been to grow into new markets. The company did that with the Xbox 360 (and then tried to piss it all away with the Xbox One), but hasn't exactly been tearing up the phone or tablet spaces.

The board should be asking "is this the right guy to grow the company in 5 years?" and not "is this the right guy to meet expectations for Q2?"

Probably an improvement

[Tridus]

Believe it or not, I actually think this is better.

Let's be honest here, the reveal and everything since has been a fiasco. Mattrick was the guy in charge, and he blew it in "they'll teach this in business schools" fashion. They made a lot of mistakes with the Xbox One, Sony took their lunch money, and pre-orders have been disappointing.

Ballmer can't really do worse, though I don't expect he'll do a ton better. So much damage has already been done to the brand name that trying to sell it as the most expensive system on the market isn't going to fly. People don't hear the name "Xbox One" and think "worth a premium price". They hear it and think "that's the thing my friends on Facebook said sucked, why would I pay more for that?"

Ballmer might also be open to the drastic step necessary to right the ship - make a version without the Kinect and charge $100 less for it. Pricing problem solved, and early adopter core gamers don't give a rats ass about Kinect anyway.

Re:How bad is MS

[BitZtream]

This is in no way a bad reflection on Microsoft, and is an entirely bad reflection on Mattrick. It just illustrates that he's a complete scumbag.

Going to work at Zynga as the CEO is not going to be a 'shitty' job. He's in charge, not one of the grunts stealing games from others and working 90 hour weeks.

It makes it clear that even Microsoft has some sort of moral standards, Mattrick isn't capable of living up to even those low standards, so he had to go run some other absolutely shitty company into the ground. Should be easy considering it was already well on its way before he became CEO.

Re:NSA backdoors in closed source closed standard?

[CanHasDIY]

We are nothing like 1984. 1984 reflects a society that willingly wanted the conditions told in the book to occur. That is no way the case in modern society, regardless of how your feeble thought process wants to pervert it. No one in modern society wants to be spied on.

Dear lord, but do I wish that were true...

In reality, there's actually a fair contingent of the populace who will not only bow to the governments every whim on the dubious claim of "safety," but will demand you hit your knees as well, with equal fervor.

You don't see this because you insulate yourself from them, partially by posting here on Slashdot; I implore you, go check out the comment sections on Yahoo, MSNBC, or Fox News for any of the stories about Ed Snowden. You will not like (and may have trouble believing) what you see.

Re:Why hasn't the board fired Ballmer?

[gallondr00nk]

He's a moron. He doesn't understand the business AT ALL. Plus, he's obnoxious as hell.

He doesn't really have to be at that level, all he has to do is be an alpha male, leader of the pack. Look at the developers thing on Youtube and you can see it perfectly clearly. He bounces around and screams and veins are popping out on his head like he wants to kick the shit out of something. It's the angry red faced jock mentality that got him to where he is, it wasn't despite it.

Often company directors don't get to where they are by being exceptionally capable or understanding their business, but because they're wired to be willing to bully and cajole and throw as much shit as is necessary to advance their careers.

Ballmer Kong

[Junior J. Junior III]

I don't know why everyone is so down on Ballmer in this story. I think he's perfect. For years, Nintendo have made a ton of money off of a great big monkey. Now, Microsoft are finally competing on equal terms.

I predict

[fyngyrz]

...a series of chair throwing games. Rumor has it that Mad Catz is looking into the design of a special controller with new partner IKEA.

Re:I predict

[mjwx]

...a series of chair throwing games.

A game of throwns?