Microsoft Game Studio’s head Shane Kim is getting bumped up to corporate vice president of Strategy and Business Development, a new position in Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, and Jeff Bell is leaving the company, Microsoft announced today.
Kim, who headed up the studio for four years, will be replaced by Phil Spencer, who formerly headed up the Microsoft Game Studios in Europe.
“We’re strategically positioning the leadership team to drive every aspect of the Xbox business to new heights,” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business. “I firmly believe that Microsoft will lead the next great innovations in games and entertainment. Today’s organisational announcements align us to accelerate this expansive growth.”
Microsoft has not yet found a replacement for Bell who is said to be leaving to “pursue other opportunities outside of Microsoft”.
“The time is right for me to pursue my life’s passion of consumer brand marketing and the creative and services that drive it.” Bell said “Coming from automotive, and now technology and entertainment, I am excited to expand to new industries and categories.”
Hit the jump for the full release and more Mattrick-y quotes.
During his talk at the Electronic Gaming Summit today, Microsoft’s Jeff Bell briefly, very briefly, touched on the long-lost, quickly becoming mythical Live Anywhere pipedream that Microsoft first mentioned at E3 in 2006.
The concept, captured in blurry pics later that year, would allow gamers to access Live via a mobile phone so they could check friend status, Achievements, all the data of Live, on the go.
Bell said not to give up hope. “Live anywhere is not abandoned, it’s just not easy to do.”
And then he never mentioned it again.
Microsoft hasn’t forgotten that despite their successes they are still the “challenger brand” in the video game industry, Jeff Bell, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global marketing for Interactive Entertainment Business, told members of the Electronic Gaming Summit today.
After walking the audience through his personal gaming history, which started with Pong in his early teens, Bell talked about gaming generations and how Microsoft works to extend their reach in the industry, reminding the audience that the Xbox is still the new guy in the console wars.
“We are the challenger brand in this category, this is our seventh year really,” he said. “We’re coming into our eighth holiday, from that stand point we are still the newbie.”
Sure the DS sells like hotcakes and the Wii is doing pretty well, too. But the real contender to which all others will be measured in this generation of console hardware is the PS2, king of the last gen. And Microsoft VP Jeff Bell thinks that the Xbox 360 can fill the shoes of the PS2, as he told 1UP: We very much are positioning ourselves to be the choice console of this generation, much like the PS2 was in the last generation.
But what about the Wii, you say.
The weeks long connection troubles many Xbox Live users have experienced since the holidays was due, according to Microsoft, to heavy Xbox Live server load brought on a record number of users attempting to access the service. Xbox group marketing manager Albert Penello told us that “It’s wasn’t a malicious thing.” He explained “We had the biggest concurrent day we’ve ever had on Live. We had more people than ever signing up on Live, it was 9 million, then 10 million, and it literally was that a lot more people were trying to get on, sign up and play than we had expected over Christmas.”
Reuters put Microsoft’s VP Global Marketing Jeff Bell in front of a microphone, and gave him a chance to speak his mind. What’d he say? Aside from promising Microsoft will fight Sony on the beaches, dude took the chance to take a little dig at Nintendo, and in particular the difficulty third-party publishers have in making money off Nintendo consoles: Clearly, we have a competitor where they win and no one else wins. That is not sustainable, it’s never been sustainable
For third-party publishers, maybe. Seems awfully sustainable for Nintendo and their fat, fat bank balance. Microsoft sees Xbox 360 sales growth in ’08 [Reuters]
Microsoft sold a lot of Xbox 360s in 2007. Halo 3 certainly helped in that little endeavour. But, man, you should wait and see how many they’ll sell in 2008. They’ll sell even more! Even without Halo 4! Well, that’s what Microsoft are saying, at least, Jeff Bell telling Reuters: We will sell more consoles next year than this year.
Blunt, but effective. He also says Europe will be the key battleground for Microsoft in the new year, where aside from the UK the 360 isn’t really taking off like MS would have hoped. Almost as if Europeans aren’t as interested in shooters and American sports games… Microsoft sees Xbox 360 sales growth in ’08 [Reuters][Image: Getty Images]
Just because Microsoft doesn’t have the home field advantage doesn’t mean the company is going to sit on the TGS sidelines. Yes, the company will be announcing something. In an interview with Canada.com, lippy Microsoft exec Jeff Bell hints at what Microsoft will be showing at the Tokyo Games Show, namely Alan Wake, Fable 2 and Halo Wars. As well it should be! Those are all first party games, though. What about third part stuff? Bell stirs the hornet’s nest: Let’s be honest. There’s only two major franchises that are talked about not appearing on our platform: Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid.
So why not buy them? You’re Microsoft, you’re rich.
Jeff Bell sat down recently with Canada.com. X07 was in Canada, you see. Bell is Xbox’s Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing. Which means he sure does love his Xbox!: In the case of EA, we just have an incredible partnership with them. Madden is not exclusive for us but they know where their bread is buttered. We will outsell the PS2 and PS3 version of Madden this Holiday Season combined.
