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Why Robin Makes Batman Better It never rains J. It pours. Fresh from his honorary nod at Boston University, Dr. Allard has now been spotted as one of the inventors of a revolutionary new Microsoft “magic wand”.
J Allard has, tragically, been in hiding for some time now. And still is! But his name, at least, has come out of hiding. We’re glad. And so, so glad that when it did resurface, it was to share the limelight with some illustrious company!
We miss J Allard! Real bad. We miss pudgy Allard, we even miss HD Allard. It was bad enough when he stopped hanging around the Xbox guys and was welcomed to the social, but over the past few months, he hasn’t even been doing that anymore. He’s just…faded away, without a trace. We were getting worried. Worried sick. But it’s OK! J’s popped up with a new job, and a new job title. One as aWeSome and eXtreme as J himself: Chief Experience Officer. As Microsoft’s CXO (yes, a real title), Allard will be “responsible for the technical architecture and user experiences related to products and services of the Entertainment and Devices (E&D) division”. Not really sure that means, but in a perfect world, it’ll mean he’s back at E3 this year.
J Allard gets a new job [ZDNet, thanks Marc!]
Last week we mentioned a bit on J Allard’s reveal of what we all already knew—Microsoft will be merging the Xbox 360 and the Zune into a (powerhouse?) entertainment experience for us all to enjoy. Talking to the New York Times, Allard became even more relaxed and lippy about it all. Here are his highlight quotes, including some insight on the next generation of Zune:
We miss J. Since moving on to the Zune side of things, we’ve hardly seen hoodie nor hair of the Microsoft exec. His signature “chillax” moves added much needed spice to the Xbox brand and we felt better for it. For those who miss the man who has been described as “the father of the Xbox”—at left, enjoying a massive slice of cake during the Japanese launch of Xbox—sat in on Larry Hryb’s latest podcast to talk about the origins and future of the Xbox family.
Allard discusses topics such as the billion dollar decision to include a hard drive as standard with the original Xbox, pushing voice chat features via Xbox Live, and the beating of expectations for Live. He also touches on future Zune and Xbox 360 integration, including theoretical Xbox Live Marketplace to Zune transfers, plus the online enabled evolution of games.
Live is 5: J Allard [Xbox]
So the Zune 2 launched. And while the new models are a definite improvement on the last version of the Zune (and by the way, Microsot made all the Zune 2 features available through software updates on old Zunes, which was super classy), I was hoping we’d see new Xbox 360 integration with the device. But we did not. J Allard had this to say when asked about actual gaming on the Zune: I love games and maybe for someone with a 40-minute commute, it might be an interesting scenario. Thus far, the market really hasn’t proven out that it is a great scenario. Customer satisfaction with what has been done isn’t that high.
Ha! J, you may ignore our Xbox Live messages and call us “creepy.” But there are others who are creepy, too. Take Jeff Minter, who features J Allard in the second part of the Space Giraffe level one tutorial, which is appropriately named “The Eyes of Allard.” Yes, Jallard’s mug is visible. Thumbs up!!
Thanks, Protector one!
Wheres J? What, you tellin’ me he’s not eXtreme enough to be in a commercial for a Microsoft product that ends with “Chug it and have no mercy”? Please. J wrote the book on that shit.
