While the name Kareem Choudhry may not be as well-known as, say, Phil Spencer or Matt Booty, Xbox fans who keep abreast with the company’s announcements and showcases are likely to be familiar with his face. As corporate vice president of emerging technologies at Xbox, Choudhry was in charge of a lot of the more innovative things Microsoft’s gaming division offered in recent years, including backward compatibility and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Well, according to a new report from Windows Central, Kareem Choudhry is leaving Microsoft, with today, in fact, being his last day with the company. While we don’t know what Choundry may be doing next, his departure is said to be “coincidental” and not a part of the reorganization that saw Sarah Bond promoted to Xbox President and Matt Booty put in charge of Activision Blizzard or the recent spate of Xbox layoffs.
At the time of his departure, Choudhry was working on getting a new gaming AI division, known internally as XEmTech or the Xbox Emerging Tech team, up and running. It’s believed the team was working on an Xbox AI chatbot and contributing to the company’s DirectSR upscaling tech. The XEmTech team will now move under the general Xbox hardware umbrella, which is currently led by Roanne Sones, who is best known for her work on Windows. A new “Xbox Experiences and Platforms” team has also been created to focus on quality-of-life features for the platform.
While we don’t know why exactly Choudhry is leaving the Xbox team, it comes at a time of upheaval for the division, as the Xbox Series X/S struggles, exclusives are beginning to jump to other platforms, and the once much-hyped Game Pass is reportedly being deemphasized. How Choudhry’s departure might tie into this is unknown, but if a more third-party-focused future lies ahead for Microsoft’s gaming division perhaps there will be less need and desire for the type of platform-specific features like back compat and cloud gaming that he specialized in.
What do you think? Does Choudhry’s departure signify something bigger happening at Xbox or is it indeed just a coincidental thing?
