Microsoft promoted its 'Minecraft' boss to be the new executive in charge of all Xbox game efforts

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Microsoft promoted its 'Minecraft' boss to be the new executive in charge of all Xbox game efforts

Matt Booty

Rev3Games/YouTube

Matt Booty, former leader of "Minecraft," and now VP of Microsoft Studios.

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  • Microsoft has appointed "Minecraft" leader Matt Booty to new corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, the firm's internal group overseeing gaming for Xbox, PC, and mobile.
  • He will report directly to Phil Spencer, Microsoft's highest-ranking executive of its gaming efforts, who himself reports to CEO Satya Nadella.
  • Booty's job will be to execute Spencer's strategy within the six studios, as part of a company-wide effort to juice up its global gaming strength.


Microsoft has named Matt Booty the new corporate VP of Microsoft Studios, the division that incorporates Xbox and all of its gaming efforts.

As VentureBeat first reported, Booty was one of the key people in Microsoft's "Minecraft" business, and his promotion is crucial to the company's overall gaming strategy and ambition.

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Back in September, CEO Satya Nadella appointed previous Microsoft Studios VP Phil Spencer as an executive VP in the company's top board, alongside the people overseeing Windows 10, the Surface brand, the Office 365 suite, and more.

This move had left the position vacant, and Booty is now stepping up to fill in. VentureBeat reports that executives said that this sets in motion a "clear succession plan" for the firm's gaming business.

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Spencer, who reports directly to Nadella, will remain in charge of the overall gaming strategy for the company, while Booty - who reports to Spencer - will have to execute that strategy with the help of all the other studios' heads, who will now report to him.

Booty's team includes first-party development houses like 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang, Rare, Turn 10 Studios, and Global Publishing. Spencer said that Booty will be in charge of managing and expanding those operations, as part of a larger company plan to devote more resources to its gaming arm.

"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," Spencer told VentureBeat.

"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."

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