Matt Booty, previously the head of all Minecraft studios, has been promoted to Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios. This makes Booty the #2 ranking officer for the Xbox brand and he will report directly to Executive Vice President Phil Spencer.
Booty began his game career in 1991 as an engineer at Midway Games in Chicago and went on to work as a programmer and game designer. While at Midway, he worked alongside the teams making such classics as NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, and Mortal Kombat prior to being promoted to the General Manager of several Midway studios in 2002 and eventually, CEO in 2008.
Booty joined Microsoft Studios in 2010 and has contributed to Microsoft’s portfolio on Windows Phone and Xbox platforms including Xbox Live Arcade.
Phil Spencer, speaking to GamesBeat, said the following regarding the promotion:
I wanted to make sure we had the right organization in place to deliver on our content goals. With that, I made the decision that I wanted to anoint a leader of our Microsoft Studios organization, which if you’ve tracked it, I’ve had the leaders of our individual franchises reporting to me for the last three and a half years. That’s been great in driving our all-up strategy and getting us to the point where Satya was willing and eager to make the investment in gaming that he’s made, but it’s also become very clear to me that we’re going to invest more in content, which we are doing, and that a unified studios leadership organization was going to be critical to our long-term success. I’ve asked Matt Booty to step up into the role of leading Microsoft Studios.
Our Take
There’s a lot of movement happening within Microsoft and it makes us happy to see the investment and focus that they are putting towards gaming. With Nadella making such strong statements about the importance of gaming, the promotion of Phil Spencer, and now the first party alignment under Booty, it’s clear Microsoft has big plans for the future. We can’t wait to watch them unfold.
