Xbox has responded to rumors claiming Phil Spencer is planning to retire following the launch of Microsoft's successor to the Xbox Series X, saying in no uncertain terms, "Phil is not retiring anytime soon."
Amid a brutal wave of layoffs that resulted in several game cancelations, a shuttered studio, and most tragically, about 9,000 redundancies across numerous Microsoft teams, a rumor surfaced from Call of Duty leaker GhostofHope, who claimed Spencer was leaving the company "after the launch of the next generation Xbox."
However, in a statement shared with The Verge, Xbox head of communications Kari Perez seemed to explicitly refute that rumor. "Phil is not retiring anytime soon," reads Microsoft's comment.
Speaking much more candidly, Microsoft communications lead Frank Shaw responded to a tweet from journalist Tom Henderson, who said he had "summed" up the rumor in an Insider Gaming report "just fine."
Shaw replied: "so long as by 'summed it up' you mean 'made it up.'"
It's worth noting that Microsoft's official statement is vague and doesn't necessarily rule out Spencer retiring at some point after the next Xbox console launch, but I mean, assuming Spencer is a human being who plans to retire one day, wasn't that always going to be true?
I think what we can safely assume from Microsoft's comms is that Spencer isn't retiring imminently.
You know who is leaving Xbox? Elder Scrolls Online studio head Matt Firor, after 18 years with ZeniMax Online.
