Although Phil Spencer can likely now enjoy the huge sense of relief that has come from both the FTC and the CMA approving Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it has been a long and rocky road. During a time of evidently more uncertainty within the internal team at Xbox, Spencer put out an internal memo that references his feelings on the fact that the FTC trial resulted in a ton of supposedly confidential getting out.
Plans regarding the future development of Xbox hardware and game development timelines for franchise to succeed on the corporate level were all included in these leaks. As part of the company’s legal battle with the FTC, material uploaded to the court’s website found its way online, revealing the kind of sensitive information that never leaves company servers.
Ironically, Phil Spencer’s response to the FTC leaks comes in the form of another leak, which includes an internal memo that the CEO sent out to the team at Xbox. After the leaks based on Xbox Series X, cloud-hybrid console, and Nintendo acquisition plans. Xbox head Phil Spencer spoke about the situation publicly, saying:
“It is hard to see our team’s work shared in this way because so much has changed and there’s so much to be excited about right now, and in the future.”
On Twitter, which is now called X, Phil Spencer tweeted:
“We’ve seen the conversation around old emails and documents. It is hard to see our team’s work shared in this way because so much has changed and there’s so much to be excited about right now, and in the future. We will share the real plans when we are ready.”
Internal Memo of Phil Spencer
An internal memo was sent to employees at Microsoft’s gaming division. Here’s Spencer’s memo in full:
“Today, several documents submitted in the court proceedings related to our proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard were unintentionally disclosed. I know this is disappointing, even if many of the documents are well over a year old and our plans have evolved. I also know we all take the confidentiality of our plans and our partners’ information very seriously. This leak obviously is not us living up to that expectation. We will learn from what happened and be better going forward. “
Undoubtedly, Phil Spencer gives his best in both messages to soft-pedal the consequence of the leaked documents by proposing that Xbox’s hardware plans have changed since they were first internally shared in 2022.
The original slides draft a plan to debut a disc-less, cylindrical, 2TB version of the Xbox Series X in 2024, as well as an updated controller with “precision haptic feedback” which is similar to PlayStation’s DualSense and direct-to-cloud capabilities like Stadia’s controller. Looking even further ahead, the documents included plans for a 10th-gen Xbox console focus on “cloud-hybrid games,” planned for the 2028 release.
Also Read: Microsoft Plans to Stream PC Cloud Games? Is it Real?
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