Don Mattrick, president of Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft may be stepping down from his position with the company in order to take a more lucrative job at Zynga.
Mattrick joined Microsoft in 2007 after a long career in the gaming industry, starting a company at 17-years-old called "Distinctive Software, which was eventually purchased by EA where he spent the rest of his career heading its global studios research and development until he made the switch to Microsoft. Mattrick has since worked on Microsoft's Xbox to help propel it to be one of the most popular gaming consoles in the world.
The announcement originally came from a report published on All Things D on Monday. Since that time, Zynga shares have risen close to 10 percent, to $3.05. Although the stock looks like it's on the rise, it's still down from 2011 when the company had its initial public offering that didn't do well. In fact, the company recently laid off 520 employees in June (nearly 18 percent of its staff) according to IGN.
The current rumor speculates Mattrick will become the new CEO of Zynga and help bring the company to the mobile games market at a pace that is conducive to the direction the company wants to go in. The current CEO and founder of the company, Mark Pincus, who has held the position since the company's founding, will likely step down and give control of his struggling company to a man who has a track record of turning things around.
According to his company bio, when he began at Microsoft's Xbox division, the Xbox 360 went from an installed base of ten million to nearly 80 million worldwide while Xbox Live membership grew from six million to nearly 50 million.
Sources told All Things D the announcement could be made official at some point later in the day on Monday. Until that time, nothing about Mattrick's leaving his position at Microsoft's Xbox division is confirmed.
