Xbox hires game developer Matthew Ball to lead strategy

Microsoft has hired game analyst Matthew Ball as head of Xbox. Football is published annually video game reportwhich is the most popular in gaming, and is “highly respected in gaming, media, and technology,” according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma.

Sharma announced Ball joining Microsoft in a memo to Xbox employees this morning, seen by Seaside. He described Ball as a “long-time player,” who has held technical and leadership roles at Illumination, Amazon Studios, Otter Media, and Accenture Strategy. “Matthew has been joining us on the road since day 10 and will start this month, I’m told,” says Sharma.

Xbox also has a new technology director. “Scott Van Vliet joins as our CTO,” says Sharma. “Scott has spent more than two decades building technology and platforms for consumers in cloud, commerce, gaming, and entertainment.”

Scott Van Vliet led Azure AI architecture at Microsoft before joining Xbox, and has worked at Amazon on Fire TV, the Appstore, and more. “Scott has also been part of the XBOX team since the Live beta in 2002,” says Sharma. “There are no changes to the hardware, Helix, or OS, that will keep me informed. Scott will start riding now and start after the Showcase.”

Sharma is also promoting Chris Schnakenberg as vice president of partnerships and business development as part of Xbox’s leadership transition today. These are the second change in Xbox leadership in the matter of weeks. Earlier this month Sharma is adding new faces to Xbox who worked with him in Microsoft’s CoreAI division. It sounds like this leadership change won’t be final.

“These changes are about strengthening our infrastructure by making it more transparent and improving performance,” says Sharma. “As we head into the Showcase and beyond, we’ll continue to make changes to put XBOX into the future.”