Greg McKinnon

B.S.M.E. Trinity College ‘18

[Boston Bruins @NHLBruins]

What a year it's gonna be.

Happy Birthday, Bergy! 🎂

#NHLBruins | @OROROwear

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@KujoSparkedYou @BookerQwerty @ItzPerka Also not everyone wants to improve constantly. That’s the whole point of the casual + ranked argument. Wanna improve and play hard? Boom ranked is waiting for you. Wanna just chill and some games you’ll do amazing, others you might get smoked? Casual. It’s not that hard to grasp

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@KujoSparkedYou @BookerQwerty @ItzPerka Your statement doesn’t make sense. SBMM means you’re playing people on your level. I said nothing of struggling - SBMM prevents that essentially. I said it makes games sweaty. Meaning overly competitive. Some people don’t want every match to be a sweat fest. Casual is nice too.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@420Dvmien37507 @BookerQwerty @ItzPerka Yes but that was before SBMM was an issue, and it worked well. That’s what everyone is asking for

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@_vdook @BookerQwerty @ItzPerka I’ve said this for years. I don’t understand why cod doesn’t do this. I’d actually play more ranked - add some reason to play both.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@KujoSparkedYou @BookerQwerty @ItzPerka If SBMM is on you don’t play against higher skill players… that’s the whole point. You play against people right at your skill. Which makes every game sweaty.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@BookerQwerty @ItzPerka I’ve said this for years. ADOPT. ROCKET. LEAGUES. SYSTEM (They have it but don’t use it)

Casual+competitive playlists. If I want a competition match to increase rank - I’ll play competitive (cod with SBMM) - if I wanna relax and play anyone better or worst, casual (no SBMM). Bam

[Phella 🔸 @PokePhellas]

I think I’ve watched this clip like 1000000 times today and we’re not done yet

[ASHA @asha_shar]

This is an important email I sent today to all employees at XBOX:

Team,

We are beginning the most significant restructure in XBOX history. After careful consideration, I've made the difficult decision to reduce our team by approximately 3,200 throughout FY27. This will include approximately 1,600 role eliminations today, and in addition, four studios will leave XBOX to new management. I recognize that a year-long restructuring creates additional challenges. Unfortunately, it is not possible to make all the necessary changes in a single day, and I wanted to be direct about the scale.

I know this is painful. These changes will directly affect people who have poured their creativity into building XBOX. Many joined us through acquisitions, while others were recruited here, or sought us out because they loved this industry and loved XBOX. Today's decisions do not reflect their talent or dedication.

Our business today is not healthy. We are operating at margins that are 3–10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and a higher cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset XBOX.

First, we will reset our content portfolio.

Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio. We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset XBOX, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.

Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3. In France, Arkane’s management is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.

We are also making reductions across other units, and in some cases, shifting investment to focus on higher priority projects. These changes vary in size across Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, Mojang, and XBOX Game Studios. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.

In addition, Mojang and King will now report directly to me. These two studios have increasingly become platforms and are our largest by monthly active players. They bring critical geographic, demographic, and differentiation to XBOX.

Second, we will reset our platform.

We know that great technology gets better when it gets simpler, not bigger. Today, in some parts of the company, work passes through as many as 14 layers of management. Our platform teams are 40% larger than they were at the start of this generation, even as our player base and playtime have declined. That complexity has slowed decisions, blurred accountability, and made it harder to deliver for players. As we reset XBOX, we will simplify.

We will reduce management layers to no more than 5, and where possible, 3. We will deliver success through a flatter organization that is built around makers (individual contributors focused on building), player-coaches (leaders who remain deeply involved in the work while developing their teams), and directly responsible individuals (DRIs) who own key decisions and outcomes. And we will streamline how we work across our tools, with a cleaner code base, shared services, and 50% reduced vendor spend.

Third, we are resetting how we operate.

As XBOX grew our headcount, we became more fragmented. Teams, studios, and functions often operate independently, and it became harder to work towards a shared goal, make the right tradeoffs, and get things done.

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

Thank you, Dave McCarthy, who is retiring after 17 years with XBOX. Dave has played a defining role in building the platform that millions of players rely on every day and has been a trusted partner through many of the biggest moments in XBOX's history. We wish him all the best.

These changes are about a bigger future for XBOX, not a smaller one. The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we've seen before. This year, we'll invest as much in XBOX as we ever have, but we'll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making XBOX where the world plays and creates.

I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027.

History is full of companies that mistake longevity for inevitability. We will not be one of them.

Asha

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@BruinsWyan2 Who tf would be mad at that trade..? Maybe people called you crazy because in no world is Zacha worth Wright + 7. He MIGHT get you 7 but even that is a stretch in my opinion.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@TheMugNHL @puckempire Jesus Christ what are we doing Donny. Better player, contract, and leader. I have absolutely no hope in this management.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@bruinscenter_ And then in the middle of a discussion he blocks me. No issue that we don’t see eye to eye, but what a whiny move.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@WillysTeam @bruinscenter_ Develop. I’m 100% ok with that. But we should be letting them develop while we build around them.

Signing Kuraly, Eyssimont, Aspirot, Jeannot (who I like) rather than getting the guys like Poitras, Lysell, etc in to play is the exact problem.

They were buried in the AHL

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@WillysTeam @bruinscenter_ I hate Toronto. They are 100% better than they were by a huge margin. Florida absolutely retooled and is going to be very good. TBL on a lesser scale. NYR even did more than we did.

I’m not talking about compete. They are setting themselves up for a better future - we aren’t.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@WillysTeam @bruinscenter_ Again retooling only works if you DO IT. I like JJ but he’s not moving the needle - and our D is… basically the same. I agree ownership sucks but management has buried young guys and failed development of young talent.

Capitals, Toronto, Florida, TBL,they retooled. We did not.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@WillysTeam @bruinscenter_ Exactly and that’s the problem. Because retooling only works if you actually do it. They either need to let the young guys truly get some action and play, or rebuild. Losing Lysell because we were too busy playing Kuraly is the exact issue with management.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@NHL_Watcher As a Bruins fan - agreed. I hate Donny so much. All about trying to make the playoffs and make that revenue.

[Greg McKinnon @Greg9524]

@shuffles99 @oilandwaffles @yegbanya You’re not getting ML and Depietro for Nurse and that contract unless you’re retaining 50% and throwing something else good in there. The first - especially in the current market, makes the most sense