What you need to know
- Xbox CVP Karim Choudhary will leave Microsoft effective today.
- Chowdhury has worked on some of Microsoft's latest gaming technologies, from Xbox Cloud Gaming to its recent AI efforts.
- Chowdhury's exit precedes a broader reorganization of Xbox leadership, with some team members promoted and new hires arriving.
- The broader leadership change is designed to streamline operations and help Microsoft accelerate growth plans for Xbox Game Pass, Xbox consoles and more.
- Windows Central understands that Careem's exit was amicable and purely coincidental, and not part of the broader reorganization.
Microsoft's gaming organization has grown into one of the largest contributors to Microsoft's overall revenue pie, with Xbox now overtaking Windows itself as one of the biggest revenue drivers. This is thanks in large part to the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, which includes Candy Crush Saga, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty among various sectors worth billions of dollars to the gaming organization.
To that end, Microsoft is rapidly evolving the way it thinks about gaming today, and the future of Xbox. It also means some changes in leadership.
After 26 years at Microsoft, our sources indicate that Karim Choudary will exit the company. Choudhury is perhaps best known to Xbox fans for his saying “He eats monsters for breakfast,” in reference to the Xbox Series Among Microsoft's most recent projects, including the development of Xbox's backward compatibility layer, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Microsoft's new gaming AI division, known internally as XEmTech or Xbox's Emerging Tech team. Today is Chaudhry's last day at Microsoft, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The XEmTech organization will transition to the overall Xbox organization, which is led by Roanne Sones. Sones is best known for her tenure as an OEM expert in the Windows division, helping companies like Dell and HP get the most out of Windows in their PC manufacturing efforts. I spoke to Sones last year at Gamescom, where Microsoft made no secret of its interest in portable gaming consoles. Also while I'm here, Jason Ronald remains a technical advisor within the Xbox umbrella, as I've seen some reports in certain places that he's no longer involved in leading the Xbox hardware charge – he is!
In an internal memo described to us, Microsoft noted that moving the AI team within the hardware ecosystem will accelerate innovation in this area. Microsoft is known to be working on machine learning technology to improve graphics with DirectSR, as well as an Xbox AI chatbot tool to help users resolve support queries externally and internally.
Ashley McKissick and Kevin Gammill are heading up a newly created organization called the Xbox Experiences and Platforms Teams, which I understand will reinvigorate investment in polishing the overall Xbox experience across Windows and Xbox consoles. Katherine Gluckstein will now lead the Xbox Strategy and Regulatory team, given her experience and success in helping Microsoft navigate the regulatory nightmare that was the Activision-Blizzard takeover across the EU, UK CMA and US Federal Trade Commission. Additionally, Jennifer Kerrigan moves from Microsoft's broader advertising organization to lead analytics and business planning for the Microsoft Gaming team.
Set your Xbox up for success
Losing Karim Choudary is an incredible shame, given Choudary's incredible contributions to Xbox and innovations in gaming. Chowdhury contributed to the Xbox's backward compatibility program, which remains among the best game preservers of all games this side of Windows itself. He was also instrumental in building Xbox Cloud Gaming, which has been a significant growth vector for Microsoft in certain markets, and will help Microsoft stake a claim in the growing market. Karim also helped shape Microsoft's growing AI efforts, which are largely focused on accelerating game development, with an equally big focus on how to ensure some ethical guardrails. Chaudhry's passion for Xbox, technology, and gaming in general was always evident when I had the opportunity to speak with him. From what I understand, and although I don't know the exact reasons yet, Choudhury's departure was circumstantial, and not part of Microsoft's broader reorganization that began late last year.
Related: Xbox's growing pains and its strange future.
Microsoft is starting several initiatives internally to improve some of the pain points I outlined in a recent article about Xbox strategy linked above. This includes hardware innovation, exploring how to expand Xbox into new markets, as well as ramping up marketing and investment in Xbox Game Pass — rather than reducing it, according to some reports. Microsoft is also working hard to increase Activision-Blizzard integration, which includes bringing some of Activision's popular game catalog to Xbox Game Pass, which recently began with Diablo IV.
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