After he took Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment division, AKA Xbox, from the top console brand in America and battered its reputation with a series of bad decisions over the last few months, it looks like Don Mattrick is going to leave brand destruction behind and try his hand at brand rehabilitation instead.

Mattrick is leaving his post as Microsoft’s President of Interactive Entertainment for the CEO job at Zynga Entertainment.

It’s been a rough stretch for Mattrick to say the least. After gamers pre-emptively made it known that they weren’t happy about the possibility of any forms of DRM, used games bans and lack of  on upcoming video game consoles, the Xbox One was announced as having DRM, a strong used game restriction and no backwards compatibility.

The result of that announcement and Sony’s announcement that the PlayStation 4 would not have any DRM or used games restrictions, the Xbox One’s stock in the public eye plummeted to nearly nothing. An Amazon poll saw public support for the PS4 at 95% to the Xbox One’s 5%.

Recently, Microsoft made a snap change to their DRM and used games restrictions which saw public perception of the console improve slightly. It’s more competitive now but the effect on sales at launch won’t be known for sure until the two consoles launch in November.

Mattrick’s tenure at Microsoft wasn’t all controversy. He joined Microsoft in 2007 after serving as head of worldwide studios at EA. During his six-year tenure, Mattrick saw Xbox grow to become the top-selling console in America, though that might have been helped by the red ring of death.

So it’s from one big evil to another for Mattrick. It’ll be interesting to see if corporate growth is something he stumbled into a Microsoft and Xbox or if he can bring Zynga back to social gaming prominence.

Source: AllThingsD