Update 02/07/2025: Following the claim from TheGhostOfHope, head of Xbox communications, Kari Perez, confirmed in a statement to The Verge that Phil Spencer is not retiring "anytime soon."
"Phil is not retiring anytime soon," Perez simply said in their statement to The Verge. Separately, chief communications officer Frank Shaw also denied the reports that Spencer was retiring and that a plan was in place for Xbox head Sarah Bond to take over. Windows Central also claimed that its sources have indicated no such plan for Spencer's retirement is currently in place.
As stated below, Spencer is currently 57 years old and has been with Microsoft for almost 40 years. He could very well remain in his position for another five years or more, but at the same time, it's not the most prescient bit of speculation to say that he'll hang it up after seeing Xbox through to its next major milestone, like the release of next-gen Xbox hardware. Plans for Bond's takeover and Spencer's exact exit window might not be set in stone, but it's fair to say he's at the tail end of his time with Microsoft.
Original Story:
The latest in today's whirlwind of Microsoft and Xbox-related news is a rumor that Phil Spencer, the current chief executive officer of Microsoft's Gaming division will retire following the launch of Xbox's next-gen console. Sarah Bond, who is currently the head of Xbox at Microsoft, is rumored to take his place.
This claim comes from TheGhostOfHope on X, an account that has previously been accurate regarding Call of Duty news. It's also been slightly corroborated by Insider-Gaming, who claims that Spencer's retirement in the near future is something they have also heard multiple times this year. That said, Phil Spencer is currently 57 years old. He's worked at Microsoft in one form or another since 1988 and joined the Xbox team in 2001. He's been at the head of Xbox since 2014, and in 2022, he was made the chief executive officer of Microsoft Gaming.
He's climbed the ladder as far as he could, and is near retirement age. That he has one foot out the door isn't the greatest bit of speculation, but it's also not a surprise that this claim would come on the day when there are many changes being announced internally at Microsoft and in its gaming division, even beyond what we've already heard about.
Spencer took charge of Xbox after the man he replaced, Dom Mattrick, left a mess of a console launch for him to clean up with the abysmal start to the Xbox One generation. He brought the platform back into the spotlight for positive reasons with his championing of Xbox Game Pass, a service that carried the moniker of 'the best deal in gaming' for years.
More recently, his legacy has been the massive acquisitions he's helped secure, of ZeniMax and Bethesda, then Activision Blizzard King, though what people will remember of those acquisitions are the mass layoffs that followed them, including today's massive cuts.
Ultimately, Spencer's retirement is more of a question of when, not if. We've been hearing rumors about Xbox's next-gen hardware for some time now, and we know that there's an Xbox-branded ROG Ally handheld coming at the end of this year. It could be the case that Spencer's retirement will come after the ROG Xbox Ally is out. It could also be that he'll step down after the next proper Xbox console is out. Either way, it seems clear that his time at Microsoft is winding down.
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