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Activision hires ex-Microsoft CFO Dennis Durkin
Dennis Durkin may not be a name you recognize, but for 12 years he's worked in the belly of the beast that is Microsoft as corporate VP, COO and CFO of the company's Interactive Entertainment Business. The last few years he's worked specifically in the games division. Today, Activision has snatched Durkin up, Microsoft has announced. Mitchell Koch, currently Microsoft's VP of worldwide sales and marketing, will succeed Durkin effective March 19.Dennis Durkin will report directly to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick as the company's chief financial officer, overseeing all finances for the publisher. Thomas Tippl has served as interim CFO since 2010, when he was bumped up to COO.
Xbox COO sees dedicated handheld market as a 'red ocean,' will let Sony and Nintendo swim in it
Dennis Durkin is COO and CFO for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business. He's also a dude thoroughly disillusioned with the future of portable consoles. Speaking to IndustryGamers, Durkin explains that the "crowded" nature of the mobile gaming market right now makes it extremely difficult to launch a dedicated handheld gaming device successfully -- in his colorful words, it's "a very, very red ocean." Whose blood is soiling those waters? The Nintendo 3DS, says Durkin, which has sold reasonably well, but has clearly failed to reach the lofty expectations set for it by fans and previous handhelds from the company. Likewise, the PS Vita invites a lot of skepticism from the Xbox chief, who says his excitement is reserved for what Microsoft can do with Kinect, Xbox Live and unique content. You might say it's to be expected that an Xbox exec would be casting doubt over Sony's great new hope, but what we learn in the process is that Microsoft has no intentions of squaring up to its home console nemesis on the mobile front. Not with dedicated hardware, anyway.
Microsoft exec caught in privacy snafu, says Kinect might tailor ads to you
Microsoft's Dennis Durkin voiced an interesting idea at an investment summit last week -- the idea that the company's Kinect camera might pass data to advertisers about the way you look, play and speak. "We can cater what content gets presented to you based on who you are," he told investors, suggesting that the Kinect offered business opportunities that weren't possible "in a controller-based world." And over time that will help us be more targeted about what content choices we present, what advertising we present, how we get better feedback. And data about how many people are in a room when an advertisement is shown, how many people are in a room when a game is being played, how are those people engaged with the game? How are they engaged with a sporting event? Are they standing up? Are they excited? Are they wearing Seahawks jerseys?Needless to say, sharing this level of photographic detail with advertisers presents some major privacy concerns -- though it's nothing we haven't heard before -- but moreover it's explicitly against the privacy policy Microsoft presents Kinect users. "Third party partners use aggregated data to deliver Kinect experiences (games or applications), to understand how customers use their Kinect experiences, and to improve performance or even to help plan new experiences," the Kinect Privacy and Online Safety FAQ reads, but also "They are not permitted to use the information for marketing purposes such as selling you games or services, or for personalizing advertising" (bolding ours). In an email to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft flatly denied that the Kinect would do anything of the sort, whether via third-party partners or otherwise. "Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE do not use any information captured by Kinect for advertising targeting purposes," representatives wrote. Honestly, some of us at Engadget still think targeted advertising is kind of neat, but we know how seriously you take this stuff.
Ad-magine the possibilities: Microsoft sees big potentials in collecting Kinect user data
Kinect isn't just a new way for you to interact with your Xbox, it could become a new way for Microsoft's advertising division to gather targeted data about your family. We're not talking about some tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory -- Microsoft's Dennis Durkin postulated such a future at the BMO Capital Markets conference yesterday. "Over time," he said, the Kinect camera's ability to distinguish between different users, and therefore tailor content to each user, will "help us be more targeted about what content choices we present; what advertising we present; how we get better feedback and data; about how many people are in a room when an advertisement is shown; how many people are in a room when a game is being played." Theoretically, the camera could also be able to measure the level of interest in a particular game or program, explained Durkin, based on factors like which jerseys viewers are wearing (in the case of a sporting event). It's important to note that this kind of data collecting is not actually happening yet. There's still plenty of time to order Joystiq Publishing's upcoming product: the Kinect Privacy Shroud. Simply drape the Kinect Privacy Shroud over the camera and go about your life as usual without fear of being targeted by invasive advertising. Oh, and learn sign language, because Kinect can hear you too.
Microsoft: Xbox Live Gold subscribers use service 3 hours per day
Dennis Durkin, COO and CFO of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, wants to keep you engaged. In his presentation at the BMO Capital Markets Annual Digital Entertainment Conference in New York today, Durkin highlighted how the social Xbox Live ecosystem, in conjunction with content provided by both Microsoft and third-party partners, is designed to provide ceaselessly entertaining ensnarement. More than half of Xbox Live's 25 million users are paying subscribers, which means that over 12 million players make use of the service's online multiplayer and non-gaming offerings, like the streaming ESPN3 service. "Those are very, very engaged customers, which is a good business," Durkin said. On average, paying subscribers use Xbox Live for 3 hours a day. Before you calculate how many Black Ops matches fit into that period, keep in mind that users spend forty percent of their Xbox time using non-headshot services -- like listening to music on Last.fm, watching a movie on Netflix or rapidly exiting the Facebook app that they accidentally clicked on. Keeping users "engaged" and interacting with the system is "really, really key for any business," Durkin said. He also pointed out that Xbox Live's digital transactions business (think: downloadable content, Games on Demand) is actually bigger than its subscriptions business. Again, Durkin emphasized that good content was crucial in keeping players connected, "and our marketplace allows for that." And to keep you engaged, Microsoft needs to keep its content-creating partners engaged too. "Obviously, the majority of the revenue that we get in this segment of our business, we share with our partners." [We had a "circle of Live" joke here to cap off the ecosystem discussion, but we deleted it.]
Bloomberg estimates Xbox Live to be worth $1 billion+
Given the number of users and $50-a-year subscription fee, it's hardly a surprise that Microsoft is pulling in a ton of cash from Xbox Live, but it looks like the service has recently crossed a significant milestone: the $1 billion mark. That's what Bloomberg estimates for the past fiscal year, at least, based on the number of paid users (about 12.5 million), and a recent statement from Microsoft's Dennis Durkin, who said that sales of downloadable content had topped subscription revenue for the first time. That translates to about $600 million from subscription revenue, and at least $600 million from other sales, for a grand total somewhere north of $1.2 billion. Can't really blame Sony for following its lead, can you? Update: Credit where credit is due -- turns out Forbes also arrived at similar numbers back during E3. It "conservatively estimates" that Microsoft raked in $625 million selling downloadable content in the past year, resulting in more than $1.25 billion in total revenue.
Microsoft Xbox head honcho Shane Kim retires, declines to offer us a piece of cake
Microsoft VP Shane Kim has been anything but a stranger to these pages over the years: we first had a sit-down with the man way back in the halcyon days of early 2006, and as recently as this summer he was discussing the probable-possibility of Xbox games making their way onto mobile devices. Now, after nineteen years with the company and a career spanning the original Xbox through the present day (and Project Natal), our man has officially announced his retirement at the end of the year. Apparently his duties will be split between Dennis Durkin, who's been named chief operating officer of the company's video game unit, and Phil Spencer, who will oversee Microsoft Game Studios. Kim has yet to proclaim any post-Microsoft plans, saying he intends to relax and spend time with friends and family. Now that that's out of the way, Microsoft, when can we expect to see Live Anywhere up and running?
Xbox chief Shane Kim steps down, Spencer and Durkin promoted
After 19 years of working for gaming/computing software juggernaut Microsoft, Shane Kim will step down at the end of this year, according to a report from Gamasutra. His duties as vice president of strategy and business development for the company's Interactive Entertainment Business sector will be filled by Phil Spencer, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, and Dennis Durkin, chief financial officer for the IEB division. When asked for his reasons for stepping down, Kim replied, "Well, the JoBro (ed: Jonas Brothers) are about to go on tour again, and, well, you know. You only live once, and that one life should be spent seeing as many JoBro (ed: Jonas Brothers) concerts as humanly possible." Okay, he didn't really say that. However, a Microsoft representative reportedly told Gamasutra that Kim "expressed a desire to spend more time with family, so that's why he's making his retirement." More details about the two-decade Microsoft veteran's departure should be coming in a press release soon. We wish Mr. Kim the best of luck with his newly acquired free time. [Image]
