78 Mulligans

Good Morning. Confirmed Call of Duty fan Tiger Woods has played over 1,300 rounds of golf on the PGA Tour through a career spanning 27 years. During that time, he has won 15 Major Championships and 82 Tour events. He has hit only 3 hole-in-ones during his PGA Tour career. It took 100 Thieves CEO & former CoD pro Nadeshot 79 attempts to ace a shot during his recent Hole in One challenge. And they say gamers aren’t athletes.

— Derek Neville, Jason Liu, Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST: Musical Chairs at Microsoft

Microsoft, after nabbing Activision Blizzard, decided to shake up the org chart. They've bumped up Matt Booty to oversee all the new studio toys they acquired, particularly ZeniMax and Bethesda. Sarah Bond will now manage both the hardware and software sides of Xbox.

Meanwhile, in Marketing for Microsoft overall, Chris Capossela is passing the CMO torch to Takeshi Numoto, who's evidently the cloud whisperer. Capossela, who once bravely shared the stage with a crash-happy Windows 98, is stepping aside after a whopping 32 years.

Also making moves is Yusuf Mehdi, now the EVP and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer; he's the brain behind Microsoft's foray into the AI cosmos.

Step back: with Kotick’s planned departure, the new Gaming org under Phil Spencer will have more women than men. There’s nothing like placing new drivers in the hot seats when it comes to driving organizational change. It’s an opportune time and mostly expected adjustment as Microsoft must now deliver on the value creation plans associated with their recent purchases.

HUD

• 💰 Despite some early issues with crashes, the open beta for Embark Studio’s The Finals is live for Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam. The beta features a battle pass with rewards carrying over to the official launch. The beta will run through November 5th.

• 🎮 Artisan Studios, developer of the 2021 RPG Astria Ascending, announced an agreement with the Ministry of Investment in Saudi Arabia to open a branch within the country. Saudi Arabia invested $38 billion earlier this year to establish a local video game industry.

• 🦖 Capcom laid out their development direction for “Codename REX.” This plan involves multiple technologies being phased into their current RE ENGINE to bring “a new standard of engine.”

MAJOR W

• 🥽 SteamVR 2.0 update should allow Valve “to add new Steam features in the future much faster and more frequently.”

• ⚔️ Dungeons of Hinterberg received a significant spot in Xbox’s Partner Preview showcase and will be available on Game Pass day one of its release.

• 💵 Xbox Game Pass has brought back its $1 trial, giving players an opportunity to try the subscription service for 14 days for just a buck. The deal arrives as top games such as Dead Space and Cities: Skylines II (PC) hit Game Pass.

F IN THE CHAT

• 🏴‍☠️ In Ubisoft’s recent earnings report, Skull & Bones was given a launch window of somewhere between January and March of 2024. Since its original announcement in 2017, the pirate game has been delayed 6 times.

• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Insomniac Games patched incorrect Cuban flags with the proper Puerto Rican flags in Spider-Man 2. They “understand that accurate representation matters, and greatly regret this error.”

CAREER CORNER

• Senior Manager of Analytics and Insights — Krafton (Santa Monica, CA)

• Executive Coordinator — Ghost Story Games (Remote, US)

• Business Program Manager — Microsoft (Multiple, US)

HIVE MIND

WEEKLY CHECKPOINT

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