06.05.09
Microsoft CTO Jumps Ship
Summary: XBox- and entertainment-oriented CTO leaves the company
NOT ONLY XBox directors are leaving their team, but many lower down the ranks too are abandoning XBox. After one very recent example comes yet another. Here is the press release about it and also a report from TechCrunch, which goes under the headline “IGT Poaches Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business CTO Chris Satchell.” Here are some details about his departed role:
While at Microsoft, Satchell was responsible for technical strategy and execution across the company’s video gaming business including Xbox, Games for Windows, Xbox Live and Microsoft Game Studios as well as future platform incubations.
It was almost exactly a month ago that Microsoft’s XBox strategy chief officially left the company in order to join Apple. Right now, to make matters worse, another strategy chief is leaving the very same unit, which operates at a loss (having already lost billions of dollars over the years, especially where XBox is concerned).
As the company Satchell joins is likely to be targeting Windows already, the risk of a subverted agenda is not so great. █
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Chips B Malroy said,
June 6, 2009 at 1:21 am
So what was Microsoft’s XBox strategy? To me everything points to dumping the Xbox360 below cost to hurt Sony. Its right out of the Netscape strategy playbook of dumping a product below cost or giving it away to kill the competition. And it would have probably worked well too, if not for a couple of facts, one the Wii, and second the horrible engineering of the hardware of the Xbox360. Sony is losing over 1 billion dollars this year, or more, so the MS strategy is not without results. MS was counting on its pile of money to carry them though to outlasting Sony playstation, but that pile, is drying up now, perhaps.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 2:47 am
Well, Microsoft borrows money now.
Windefender said,
June 6, 2009 at 5:28 am
Xbox strategy = Windows as the base for future gaming consoles, control over platform technology, spread of DirectX.
Risk: competitors with Linux based rich consoles and a DirectX replacement
1. Build and sell Xboxes
2. huge financial loss but gain of market share
3. ????
http://kotaku.com/263486/lawsuit-alleges-xbox-killed-baby
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 5:37 am
See Microsoft’s response to this incident.
Needs Sunlight Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 9:54 am
There have been more fires than that. There have been several in Sweden alone. M$ had blamed the cables for the fires caused by faulty power supplies.
Any progress the console made in the market was pure side effect. It looked like almost exclusively a testbed for DRMed systems on commodity hardware. A minor function would be to try to have an excuse to saturate the console adverting with M$ chaff and diffuse the focus on Wii and PS2/PS3.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
June 6th, 2009 at 11:01 am
You would not expect Microsoft to accept responsibility and thus fuel class action lawsuits.
If you think that’s bad, see how Microsoft reacts to the problem.