Microsoft exec Shane Kim, formerly the corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios and current corporate vice president of Strategy and Business Development for the Interactive Entertainment Business, will leave that verbose title behind later this year. He’s retiring.
While there’s always been a lot of chatter surrounding the possibility of Microsoft entering the handheld gaming space, Microsoft themselves have always been rather evasive on the subject. Which is why these comments from Shane Kim are so surprising.
In yesterday’s Chain Interview installment, Sony’s Scott Rohde wanted Microsoft’s Shane Kim to say if Microsoft would get back into making sports games. Kim answered. Then things got… interesting.
The cliffhanger at the end of yesterday’s Chain Interview had Xbox exec John Schappert wanting to know what a Sony exec thinks of Xbox Live. Let’s get past the halfway point with an answer.
So far this hardware generation, we’ve seen the number of third-party exclusives on any platform shrink to almost zero. The last major series to come around? Metal Gear Solid.
Kotaku recently asked Microsoft if the flourishing of non-gaming features like Netflix, Facebook, Last.fm and Twitter on the Xbox 360 will someday invalidate the classification of the device as a gaming console.
On that day in the future when Microsoft launches its E3-darling Project Natal no-touch control system, it will feel like a console launch, a company exec told Kotaku.
Given Microsoft’s demonstration of Avatars gathering in a shared virtual movie theatre at E3, it seemed that Xbox Live could be going in a PlayStation Home direction. Not quite, we were told.
The New York Times interviewed Microsoft’s Shane Kim about what the company has in store for the Xbox 360 beyond just a gaming platform.
