Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have told us that Mike Ybarra and Kareem Choudhry are both set to become Corporate Vice Presidents at Microsoft, formalizing their roles as permanent fixtures for Xbox. Mike Ybarra is the Head of Program Management for Xbox's core, with Kareem Choudhry heading up development at Xbox software engineering, reporting to Xbox head Phil Spencer.
You might recognize Kareem Choudhry from the end of the Project Scorpio trailer, where he delivers the famous strapline "It's a monster." Choudhry was formerly head of Kinect development until the peripheral became unbundled with the console, at which point he moved to oversee all Xbox development.
Mike Ybarra also needs little introduction, as the face of the Xbox operating system. Mike Ybarra is active both on Twitter and on Beam, and has spoken to us in the past about the Xbox's various features. Ybarra formerly worked at Microsoft Studios as a partner manager, signing deals to publish games such as Gears of War, RYSE, and Sunset Overdrive. Ybarra now oversees the team that delivers us features such as Xbox One's backward compatibility, the Xbox functionality in Windows 10, and the upcoming redesign of the Xbox dashboard.
Given their contributions to what makes Xbox great today both for developers and customers, I'd personally say both promotions are more than well deserved.
Mike Ybarra, Kareem Choudhry, and the rest of the Xbox team are hard at work putting together the pieces that make up Project Scorpio — which will launch as the most powerful console ever built. Powering true, native 4K gaming experiences, Project Scorpio will also bring forward your entire Xbox One library, including any Xbox 360 games that are backward compatible. Project Scorpio will hopefully also lead to a wider adoption of the Universal Windows Platform for game creation, bringing more titles to the Windows 10 Store as part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program.
It cannot be understated how much effort has been poured into turning Xbox around since the Xbox One's clunky launch back in 2013, and both Choudhry and Ybarra have been instrumental in spearheading that return to form. I'd say we have a lot to look forward to as Xbox customers moving forward.
