Xbox hires game industry analyst Matthew Ball to lead strategy

Microsoft has recruited game industry analyst Matthew Ball as Xbox chief strategy officer. Ball publishes an annual state of video gaming report, which is a popular read across the game industry, and he’s “widely respected across gaming, media, and technology,” according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

Sharma announced Ball is joining Microsoft in a memo to Xbox employees this morning, seen by The Verge. She described Ball as a “longtime gamer,” who has held strategy and leadership roles at Illumination, Amazon Studios, Otter Media, and Accenture Strategy. “Matthew has been partnering with us on strategy since day 10 and will officially start this month, reporting to me,” says Sharma.

That means Ball has been helping advise Sharma on Xbox strategy early on in her leadership, since it has been 90 days since she first took over as Xbox chief. I’ve been waiting to hear a clearer strategy on the future of Xbox beyond “a return of Xbox,” and the recruitment of Ball certainly explains why we haven’t seen that yet.

Xbox also has a new chief technology officer. “Scott Van Vliet is joining as our CTO,” says Sharma. “Scott has spent more than two decades building technology and consumer platforms across cloud, commerce, gaming, and entertainment.”

Scott Van Vliet led Azure AI infrastructure at Microsoft before joining Xbox, and he has previously worked at Amazon on Fire TV, the Appstore, and more. “Scott has also been part of the XBOX community since the original Live beta in 2002,” says Sharma. “There are no changes to Hardware, Helix, or OS, which will continue reporting to me. Scott will begin ramping up now and formally start after Showcase.”

Sharma is also promoting Chris Schnakenberg to corporate vice president of partnerships and business development as part of today’s Xbox leadership changes. These are the second major Xbox leadership changes in a matter of weeks. Earlier this month Sharma adding some new faces to Xbox who used to work alongside her in Microsoft’s CoreAI division. It sounds like these leadership changes won’t be the last, either.

“These changes are about strengthening our foundation by creating more clarity and improving execution,” says Sharma. “As we head toward Showcase and beyond, we’ll continue making the changes needed to position XBOX for the future.”