Nilay Patel

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Hello and welcome to Decoder.

I'm Neil I. Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.

Today, let's talk about the future of Xbox.

Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and a two-time Decoder guest who's led Xbox for more than a decade, just resigned.

But in a shocking twist, his deputy and long-assumed successor, Sarah Bond, is also out too.

And Microsoft Gaming is now in the hands of Asha Sharma, one of Microsoft's AI executives with no prior game industry experience.

It's a major leadership transition that suggests Microsoft wants to make serious changes to its gaming division, which owns franchises like Halo, Call of Duty, and Minecraft.

There's literally no better person to talk about all this with than Tom Warren, a senior editor here at The Verge and author of the excellent newsletter Notepad.

Tom just had a new baby.