Minecraft head Matt Booty chosen to lead first-party games at Microsoft Studios

By Asher Madan
last updated

Today, Matt Booty, the former head of Microsoft's Minecraft business, was promoted to Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios.

He will report directly to Phil Spencer, the Executive Vice President of Gaming, and oversee the company's game publishing ambitions. After Spencer was promoted, his previous position as the head of Microsoft Studios was left vacant. Booty's appointment finally fills that after all these years.

In an interview with GamesBeat, Spencer issued the following statement when asked about Booty's promotion.

I wanted to make sure we had the right organization in place to deliver on our content goals. With that, I made the decision that I wanted to anoint a leader of our Microsoft Studios organization, which if you've tracked it, I've had the leaders of our individual franchises reporting to me for the last three and a half years. That's been great in driving our all-up strategy and getting us to the point where Satya was willing and eager to make the investment in gaming that he's made, but it's also become very clear to me that we're going to invest more in content, which we are doing, and that a unified studios leadership organization was going to be critical to our long-term success. I've asked Matt Booty to step up into the role of leading Microsoft Studios.

It's great to see Booty take over Microsoft Studios as he has a lot of experience in the gaming industry. He started his career in 1991 at Midway Games and eventually became their President and CEO. He joined Microsoft in 2010 and was mostly involved with Minecraft up until now. Hopefully his experience in the field will lead to more high quality exclusives on Xbox One and Windows 10. However, only time will tell what this change brings to the company. Replacing him at Minecraft is Helen Chiang, who takes up the role of General Manager.

Keep an eye on WindowsCentral.com/Gaming for all the latest in Xbox and Windows 10 gaming, accessories, news, and reviews!

Asher Madan
Asher Madan

Asher Madan handles gaming news for Windows Central. Before joining Windows Central in 2017, Asher worked for a number of different gaming outlets. He has a background in medical science and is passionate about all forms of entertainment, cooking, and antiquing.

12 Comments
  • "It's great to see Booty take over Microsoft studios" sounds a little weird tbh but let's see. Fingers crossed.
  • Congrats Matt
  • Matt Booty could be a good fit for the role. He has proven himself as a leader with the direction that he has taken Minecraft. I like his mantra of enabling developers to focus on developing games (I am paraphrasing). I hope he has the best of luck in the role.
  • Let's hope he can help turn Halo around.
  • Good luck matt b
  • I trust Phil Spencer and any decisions he make. Just look at how the Xbox division is doing right now.
  • Getting its back doors smashed in by PlayStation and Switch, that's how the Xbox is doing right now.
  • Just because others are outselling doesn't mean they aren't successful... Last I saw, Xbox game attach rates were higher, and that is where the real money is. I haven't seen attach rate details in a while though. Regardless, they are doing just fine.
  • Having had Xbox as my primary console since the original launched, this is the most pisspoor effort I've seen from Microsoft. Whichever way you look at it, Sony ploughed so much effort into the PlayStation this gen. Xbox's 1st party effort has been atrocious.
  • I don't really see Sony's doing anything... except making games, same strategic as ps3/2 era.
    And Uncharted 4 & Horizon are the only 2's on top 10 ps4's chart. One in 2016, one in 2017.
    10m & 4m outta 70m users, one off purchase? From a tech / programming's standard point, do list a few achievements.
  • With Xbox i Hope they will leave the US 1st out and release products and software, and games world wide.. That is how it suppose to be
  • Is there even much in the way of first party titles in the foreseeable future? As an aside, if he gets the Developers to abandon RNG crate models then he'll be a win, I'm not holding my breath though.