Microsoft Xbox Architect Eric Neustadter Leaving Company Might Scare a few Gamers
This news of his departure comes just days ahead of Halo 5: Guardians official launch. He added that Microsoft had commented, after being pressed on the matter, that console shipments won’t be a “primary metric for success” anymore, as Xbox Live usership, which has bigger margins, will take its place as a main statistic for measuring success. Mobile gaming, the potential for systems to be contained within virtual reality helmets, a prevalence of streaming services, and a gaming model that may increasingly veer towards subscription rather than ownership, all suggest that the Xbox Two could be significantly different from any previously released console.
With the Xbox Live service having been hit by outages quite often of late, the Friday outage yet again showed up an error for gamers wanting to play online multiplayer games.
We’ve reached out to him and to Microsoft for a statement, and we’ll add that context to this post once we get it. It is unclear, however, if Neustadter’s exit is in any way related. But the series is rebounding from the disappointing release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which suffered from numerous connection issues. The Select Xbox 360 & the Xbox One games are getting around 70% discount. His departure is a disbelief for many people inside as well as outside this industry.
The Xbox One is no longer new, but Windows 10 still has that shiny feel.
Anyone interested in the history of “e” and the creation of the online bohemoth known as Xbox Live service should check out this excellent read chronicling the entire lifespan of the service. And he has spent every day since 2002 working on Xbox. The importance and influence of Xbox live can be sensed from responses received to the tweet, wherein he announced that he is leaving the company.