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The Verge: Almost every single Xbox executive we profiled last year has left MS

I don't understand the Major Nelson hate at all. What is he supposed to do that he isn't doing? I do think it would be weird to fawn over him like he's the greatest thing ever.

He's just a community manager. I don't read his blog and follow him on XBL because he is awesome. He is just a source for some information that I find useful.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Yusuf Mehdi and Major Nelson still need to go.

Fuck that dude. I don't know what the guy does exactly, but he is charismatic an associated with the brand at this point. I don't want to see him go ever.
 
M.Nelson is fine. in fact, Sony could really use a community personality just like him to interact with the PlayStation fan-base. because right now we have people who are not paid to interact with the community like Shu and Boyes. it's cool that they do but it's not their job.
Sony has a couple of guys that run the Playstation Blog and Official Podcast. They're just not as famous (or infamous) as Major Nelson.
 

acevans2

Member
"Spencer is a games guy, and his focus on games is paying off, as the Xbox One just outsold the PS4 for the first time in November."

Really. The focus on games paid off? Not the insane discounting? Guess they left a lot of money on the table this holiday season then.
 

pastrami

Member
Larry is damaging to the brand. The guy is incompetent at best.

Any particular examples? I don't really follow him much, but I'm curious why you think he's damaging the brand. From the little I do know about him, he comes across as a fairly boring corporate mouthpiece, but certainly not "damaging" in any way.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to Jeff Rubenstein? Does he just write as part of the XBox Wire Staff (that apparently every post on XBox Wire is from)? I liked him on PSBlog, but I haven't heard much about him since he went to XBox.
 
Spencer is a games guy, and his focus on games is paying off, as the Xbox One just outsold the PS4 for the first time in November.
Not to shit on MS for a well deserved win but I think that was less about a policy change that the general public isn't aware of and more about the excellent price tag and bundles.
 

JaggedSac

Member
"Spencer is a games guy, and his focus on games is paying off, as the Xbox One just outsold the PS4 for the first time in November."

Really. The focus on games paid off? Not the insane discounting? Guess they left a lot of money on the table this holiday season then.

People will buy any ole shit if it is discounted.
 

Darksol

Member
I mean, it's a shitty headline and doesn't project any sort of confidence about the product, but I think most of us would agree these changes were for the best.

Losing the lead engineer must sting though.
 

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
Any particular examples? I don't really follow him much, but I'm curious why you think he's damaging the brand. From the little I do know about him, he comes across as a fairly boring corporate mouthpiece, but certainly not "damaging" in any way.

BTW, does anyone know what happened to Jeff Rubenstein? Does he just write as part of the XBox Wire Staff (that apparently every post on XBox Wire is from)? I liked him on PSBlog, but I haven't heard much about him since he went to XBox.

He's basically another Major Nelson but less vocal. He pretty much goes everywhere with Larry on tours and such and also does the podcast with him.
 

Hexa

Member
Good job Phil Spencer. The previous path obviously wasn't working. And making the big changes necessary to put Xbox back on track required abandoning a lot. That Spencer was willing to throw away pretty much everything in order to put the Xbox back on track is impressive.
 
I don't know I'm more interested in Xbox One than I ever thought possible a year ago, so I don't particularly give a shit if it became some revolution.
 

RdN

Member
Agreed. They need a younger and refreshed Xbox face.

They should hire that guy from Insomaniac who hosts the Sunset.tv.. He's young, funny and has a great presence.

However, Major Nelson has a cult following that's pretty big. Try to say something bad about him on reddit and you'll get swarmed by insults and downvotes.

I think the best course would be getting Major Nelson back to his previous position as program manager for Xbox Live, and have another person take the reins as the PR face for Xbox.
 
Also, FYI, it's Larry Hryb. Not "Herb".

https://twitter.com/majornelson

"Huh-rib"

qr5xyHy.png
 
Someone's gonna crack the smart living room experience someday soon, but it's pretty clearly not gonna be MS anymore. Good for them for pivoting and refocusing on games, though.
 

Anion

Member
I actually like Major Nelson lol. I didn't know he is hated by a lot of people. I'm guessing a lot of people here don't like him cause of the "flip switching" incident with Angry Joe
 

Rymuth

Member
I fully believe Major Nelson doesn't even play or like games and he just has some sort of high-paying acting spokesperson gig.
Funny, I believe the exact same thing about Phil Spencer. He's a sports guy whose dream was to be in charge of the NFL relations with MS and now he's been reduced to this.
 

Steroyd

Member
http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/29/7463949/xbox-executives-leaving-microsoft-tv-apps-dead

All in one year. So GAF, is MS's original vision and ambition in conquering the living room with the Xbox One as a multi-purpose device truly dead or will they give it another serious try with the launch of Windows 10 next year?

The dream of an all in one device should die, far too many variables for one device to rule them all nowadays, especially now with TV functionality evolving, they should try to get Windows OS on TV's themselves somehow if They're adamant of going in this direction.
 

vesvci

Banned
I actually like Major Nelson lol. I didn't know he is hated by a lot of people. I'm guessing a lot of people here don't like him cause of the "flip switching" incident with Angry Joe

I just think he's irrelevant to where Xbox is now and where it seems to be heading. He needs to go.

Spencer is more representative of Xbox IMO.
 

Sydle

Member
Ballmer's Windows walled-garden strategy is dead and with it the narrow vision of controlling the TV is also dead. His successor, Nadella is about MS infrastructure and services powering productivity and experiences on as many devices and OS as possible, allowing the user to move freely between screens and platforms. Xbox will follow suit and it's going to require new leadership to make it happen.

With Windows 10 I think we'll see the Xbox brand becoming one of the major attached services with the OS by the time it officially launches next fall, with more cross-device games and incentives to signup for Xbox Live Gold. I believe the Xbox One will continue getting exclusive and timed-exclusive games for the next year, but the long-term strategy is to transition Xbox into a platform as a service and develop more games as a service.
 
Larry is great with crowds and a great guy to small talk with...it's painfully obvious that a majority of people hating on him have never been to an event with him
 

emb

Member
I'm really glad they changed direction. I didn't think they had it in them, to fall back that little bit and aim to have a box that's good at being a lowly game console.
 
Have you met him? Also, Angry Joe was being well... Angry Joe, and I imagine everyone in the Xbox division was EXTREMELY frustrated at this point in time.

Joe was polite and dared asking questions the "real" journalists didn't. Also MN might be the nicest mofo on the planet personally, but I really dislike him professionally.
 
Good.

Now Yusef needs to resign
read: shitcanned
and things will be even better! I'm honestly shocked he's still there after the fact that before the Xbox One came out, he was doing all those interviews and saying the most goddamn idiotic things.

I'm sure he's been sitting in his office waiting for a phone call from some tech or marketing website wanting an interview so he can say something like "again, out original vision hasn't left" or "we've only begun to see the advertising opportunities in the console" or even a "the target consumers for the original console didn't have the foresight to see the numerous benefits a connected experience could offer." The fact that if you read those three quotes I just made up and legitimately picture him saying them says all you need to know about how bad of a job he's done in the past.

And before I get the "I can't believe you would want someone to lose their job!" post, yes losing your job for no reason is shitty and I don't want that to happen to anyone. However, if you are getting paid millions for doing shitty, incompetent work, then yes, you should lose your job.

/end rant

It's good to see them make the changes necessary in the first year of the console and not trying to wait and see for years and years before you change it.
 

Maximus.

Member
Just like all of Microsofts recent hardware endeavours, they haven't found anything that sticks with a large amount of consumers.
 

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
Nelson and Greenberg need to go. Greenberg is smarmy personified, but he just got promoted, though. Keep Yusuf around for comic relief.
 

Astral Dog

Member
This is surprising more than anything, its kinda amazing how they completely abandoned their vision and most executives just left.
 

BokehKing

Banned
LOL



You do realize that the Xbox One merely helps control the wide variety of devices used by your TV right?

The article slams IR for no good reason, it's a cheap old technology that works with just about any device under a TV. Xbox One uses it perfectly, it can turn on and off all your devices with a single command. It can also send a variety of commands to specific devices in your living room.
Does Xbox One allow me to record from my cable box dvr?
Does it has the same channel selection as roku?
Does it make popcorn for the movies I want to watch?
 

Blobbers

Member
So speaking of Greenberg, we all know he has his famous twitter episodes, but I'm still not sure if I dreamt this up or did he really announce on twitter that he would buy the next 3-4 people who sold their PS4s an XBox One, sometime during the time PSX was supposed to be held?
 
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