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Bethesda's Todd Howard was "really, really sorry" about Phil Spencer's departure from Xbox, but says that "everybody's really optimistic" about the future under new CEO Asha Sharma.
In a group interview with GamesRadar+, Howard said that Sharma had not yet visited Bethesda's Maryland studio, "but everybody has talked virtually." Sharma took over leadership of Xbox last month after the abrupt departure of Phil Spencer after nearly 40 years at Microsoft. Former Xbox president Sarah Bond left Microsoft at the same time.
Howard says that Spencer "is a good friend of mine" and as such he was "really, really sorry to see Phil go." In spite of his closeness with his former boss, however, he says his relationship with Sharma has started on a positive note. "Asha is great," he notes, saying that "so far [...] everybody's really optimistic" about where things at Xbox are heading under the new leadership. Of course, that leadership is not entirely new, as Howard notes the presence of long-time Xbox exec Matt Booty in his new role as chief content officer under Sharma.
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As a leading figure at Xbox, Spencer would have had a solid working relationship with Howard long before Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda parent company Zenimax Media, which was announced in 2020. Since then, Starfield is the only major new release Bethesda has put out (no, I'm not counting Oblivion Remastered), but with The Elder Scrolls 6 still lurking somewhere over the horizon, I'd guess the pair were still working closely together until Spencer's departure.
I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.
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