Report: Don Mattrick Leaving Microsoft for...Zynga? [UPDATE: It's Official]

Wait, wait, wait!

Bing Gordon is a real person?!

I'm sorry, I just imagine that's Alex's pet name for the search engine, lol!

Fitting.

50 Cent should replace him. Think about it.

@def said:

They were made for eachother! :)

I wonder how long that's been in the works. Not like he'll be on 2 weeks notice

Now is the time.

Wait, I thought Zynga was a sinking ship. They must have offered him a metric fuck ton of money for this position. Maybe he'll cash out and buy an island.

He was going to get canned so he was being pro-active

Good riddance! The dude really came off as incredibly out of touch and apocryphal. He'll probably fit in well at Zynga.

Man, poor Microsoft is in shambles isn't it? That XBO launch is gonna be a disaster...

I realize the 180 as well as gently pushing Mattrick out are moves in the right direction, but they aren't moves that make me feel any better about Microsoft's product.

Maybe they were headed in the wrong direction before, but they had a leader and they had a direction. Now all that's left is a void where those two things used to be. Not a good situation to be in mere months from the release of your new console.

So.... 6 months left until Xbox One release date and the captain of the ship is already abandoning it before it even has a chance to leave the port? :)

First, it was the full on 'Don't care what you all bitchin' about, we gonna do it our way and you're gonna pay for it and enjoy it .... or just stay with the new model of the 2005 Xbox 360' ... then they did an 180 on some of their worst policies and now the President of the Interactive Entertainment Business is leaving the company. The face of the product is leaving the company.

I'm really curious to see what else awaits the company and the new console in the coming months.

His punishment was made more severe.

This is confirmed. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/zynga-names-don-mattrick-chief-200000713.html

@michiduta: He could have at least left after it shipped like Stephen Sinofsky did with Windows 8.

Microsoft seems to be having a tough time juggling the Xbox One. This just makes me even more curios about what the hell is going with that team.

good. Major nelson and Balmer needs to leave too now.

How crazy is it over there at MS these days? Are their axemen roving the halls and hunting employees for sport yet?

This is hilarious.

No, Balmer (John Dimaggio) was really funny in Pirates of Silicon Valley.

What is it people are saying this guy said about women in uniform..?

@thegorilla: hey, I live in Alaska. Stuff happens here.

Sometimes.

They're referring to his comments about concerns that men and women in uniform are unlikely to be able to have Internet access, barring the Xbox One from them, and he basically suggested that it wasn't something they were really too worried about. Those people can just get a 360 instead.

Just one step closer to the return of J Allard.

Don't really see this as a bad thing for the XOne. Any major decisions/etc are already made and the console is on track for Nov. Release - him leaving isn't a huge surprise with how much negative PR he's generated over the past month just by saying stupid things.

I would bet good money that there was huge internal pressure for him to leave. Him leaving for Zynga is just a way to have both himself and Microsoft save face from a public firing, which would amount to admitting that they already failed with the XBO to date.

Bring back Allard.

Potential candidates to takeover the Xbox division:

• Phil Spencer
• John Riccitiello
• a Kinect 2 + The Cloud

For the people who keep dreaming of Allard coming back: Is it possible that Allard doesn't want the job? Zune and Kin crashed and he was disappointed Courier didn't happen (and might be even more annoyed they released Surface) and the people responsible for that happening are still there. Allard might be happy staying in "retirement" instead of fighting with them again.

I was under the impression that Zynga was basically dead.

Bring back J!

That iss where Mattrick belongs to.

Oh I see, rather then continuing to try to turn a company into something that gamers hate, he's just going to go to a company that gamers already hate. Saves him a lot of time.

While he did turn out a successful product and provided the Xbox division with a direction, that direction involved Kinect and a convoluted new Xbox that in retrospect was bound to earn this kind of blowback.

Given his desire to go casual, connected, and broad and all, he's definitely a fit at Zynga. The real question is who takes over his position at Microsoft.

On a side note, I wonder how long ago he was decided this and whether him already knowing at E3 was what gave him little reason to give a shit. It would certainly make sense but ultimately speculation.

https://twitter.com/nyyphil/status/351765077784924160

YES! THIS IS THE BEST NEWS ALL YEAR

"Zynga has brought plagiarized games to the mainstream. Marks pioneering vision of one day plagiarizing all games ever made is why I have stepped on board. I can't wait to begin reskinning classic games, slap microtransactions on them, and push them out to the drooling hordes."

-Don Mattrick

lol, this piece of shit destroys the xbox then when he realizes what he's done he hops ship to a company that's ALMOST as scummy as he is.

Welcome Allard back to the tribe

"I joined Zynga because I believe that Mark will pay me a shit load more money then Microsoft ever will"

there it's fixed now.

I think this is the perfect fit for the Don. Zynga's biggest demographic (by a huge margin) is stay-at-home moms. I think Mattrick's gaming sensibilities will jive more with them, than the xbox demo.

"You still here ? Get the hell out of my Office"

- Steve Ballmer

Not surprising at all to me. MS's flip flop on all the DRM policies signaled this. Basically MS reversed all of Mattrick's work and ideas. He probably started looking for a place to land immediately. His overall PR and interview demeanor were so god damned god awful I feel none sorry for him too.

Welp.

Wow. I wish I understood more about the internal politics of this. On the face it seems like it could be a challenging, but overall positive, change for the Xbox One. So much of what is wrong in the Xbox One has more to do with marketing and productization rather than core engineering. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this.

I've never seen a corporation so big change course so quickly and so successfully as Microsoft has several times in the last 20 years. I'm honestly curious if they can still pull that off.

good riddance. the sony guys are much better personas with the public now.

wonder who's filling his spot.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out assbag. Good riddance

Guess he wasn't getting enough 'tears of children' at Microsoft.

So, by the transitive property, do I now dislike Don Mattrick?