Resetting Xbox • Hacker News Board

Re: Resetting Xbox

#211

Post by taurath » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #188

taurath wrote: post #170

> We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. This is the new trendy management style - a few executive owners and then everyone else are expendable ICs, with a…

Sounds like an awful model for making a game if I understand the model correctly . Forget tight-knit, multidisplinary teams. Everyone's just a special cog to switch in and out from project to project, and laid off when we need a little bit better of an earnings call. Add in micromanagers and directors who need to have their fingers and every project (instead of focusing on the individual needs of a team and game), an…

"I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills, can't you understand that?? What the hell is wrong with you people!?"

Re: Resetting Xbox

#212

Post by bot41 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

> I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 ... This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today

> we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me

Seems tone deaf to do both of these messages at the same time.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#213

Post by jayGlow » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #159

tracker1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the margins, that's crazy thin for the size of the org... One bad quarter could turn from a few million in profits to hundreds of millions in losses. It's too close, and there's no way to build/store funds for any kind of storm at that level. Now, I think the vast majority of the pain is more than self-inflicted... I think actual business, marketing and focus need to start taking priority over idealistic political…

Billion USD grocery chains operate on 2-3% margins just fine...

food demand is pretty inelastic their margins are low but they're fairly consistent. modern games can have budgets of a few hundred million dollars with absolutely no guarantee of sales. at those margins 1 failed triple ai have could wipe out several years of profits.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#214

Post by nkrisc » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates. I never played it very frequently so I disabled the sleep mode so it wouldn’t just stay on in my media cabinet heating my house. But of course that meant any time I spontaneously felt like using it there were 10 minutes of updates to download, so I would get annoyed and just do something else. Oh it can also play movies? Sorry movie night is ruined thanks to 30 minutes of downloading and installing updates. Eventually I just never turned it on again because all it did was download and install updates.

It really just killed all my interest in it because I couldn’t just turn it on and play a game unless I let it stay on all the time wasting energy and downloading constant updates in the background.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#215

Post by MagicMoonlight » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Resetting Xbox

#216

Post by brcmthrowaway » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

righthand wrote: post #37

bob1029 wrote: post #28

> We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. This reads like something from The Office.

Michael begging Oscar to tell the shareholders how to save the company.

I can't believe he just left the building

Re: Resetting Xbox

#217

Post by dzonga » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

Xbox lost their identity.

Xbox was a Live Games platform. they lost that identity trying to please everyone not their core audience.

compare to Nintendo - who stuck to their identity - as fun games first. graphics not necessary.

they can cut so many jobs - but unless they return to what makes Xbox great. the platform / ecosystem won't recover.

Re: Resetting Xbox

#218

Post by brcmthrowaway » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

This reads like pie in the sky MBA thinking

Re: Resetting Xbox

#219

Post by MagicMoonlight » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

foepys wrote: post #159

tracker1 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the margins, that's crazy thin for the size of the org... One bad quarter could turn from a few million in profits to hundreds of millions in losses. It's too close, and there's no way to build/store funds for any kind of storm at that level. Now, I think the vast majority of the pain is more than self-inflicted... I think actual business, marketing and focus need to start taking priority over idealistic political…

Billion USD grocery chains operate on 2-3% margins just fine...

[dead]

Re: Resetting Xbox

#220

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 7:23 PM UTC

butlike wrote: post #58

scott_w wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just looking at Sharma’s history, she rejoined MS in 2024. Xbox was struggling long before that, so I don’t see how anyone can blame Sharma for the past 10 years…

You can blame her for the last 10 years because she's CEO _now_. That's what you do. You blame the head of the organization for the organization's problems.

[deleted]