Xbox’s New Chief Strategy Officer Is Planning To ‘Revive Storied Franchises’

Earlier this week, we covered the news that Xbox had hired a new executive to “strengthen the console side of the business” in the form of Matthew Ball, who has joined as Chief Strategy Officer.

And now, a new interview with Bloomberg has shed more light on Ball’s role at Team Xbox, which includes plans to “revive storied franchises” in addition to his work around consoles. The outlet says that these are two of his main focuses, although we don’t have any specifics about which exact franchises he’s going to be prioritising.

In fact, he didn’t talk much about games in this interview, aside from the following couple of quotes:

“I’m very focused on this question of how games can – where appropriate; it’s not suitable for all titles – find better and bigger ways to explore, create, co-create and build together,”

“He says he has “thousands of memories in specific basements playing Halo, playing Gears of War, and when [Asha Sharma] asked if I wanted to be a part of a turnaround, it was irresistible.”

Elsewhere in the discussion, Ball explained that Xbox has struggled with “largely disappointing” quarters over the past few years, and he’ll be part of turning that around and improving Xbox’s reach in players and player hours.

In terms of console, he also thinks it’s an area that’s “important, durable and still growing”.

There definitely seems to be a lot of excitement around this specific hire for Xbox right now, especially considering how people know Matthew Ball from his work as a gaming industry analyst at the research house Epyllion. Earlier this year, he actually penned a 167-slide presentation on “The State of Video Gaming in 2026“.

Just yesterday, we highlighted how the Epic Games CEO was praising Xbox’s recent hires as a “world class” leadership team, and now it’s up to them to use their expertise to lead Xbox into a mega-successful new era!

Excited by what’s happening inside of Xbox HQ right now? Talk to us down in the comments below.