Xbox Live Founder Leaves Microsoft

Microsoft might not be doing as well as Sony in the console race as of late, but their performance isn’t so bad you would think it would warrant an evacuation order—and yet, over the past 18 months, several high-ranking executives within the company have parted from Microsoft in search of fairer shores. Don Mattrick, former boss of Xbox, left the company a while back to become president of Zynga, while former chief product officer Marc Whitten, Xbox Entertainment Studios executives Nancy Tellem and Jordan Levin, and Xbox One TV designer Ben Smith have all gone their separate ways as well. And today, if that wasn’t enough, Boyd Multerer, founder of Xbox Live and designer of Xbox One, has officially tweeted his resignation from Microsoft as well.

"Goodbye Microsoft. It was a good run. Xbox was Great! Time to do something new.”

And then the follow-up:

“Not yet ready to say what that new thing is... But OMG is writing code very day and exploring ideas fun!"

Boyd Multerer’s leave from Microsoft certainly came as a surprise, since he’d been with the company for two decades now, and seemed to be well established inside it. There’s no news on if this project of his is game-related or not, but for what it’s worth I wish him well in his endeavors, even though with all the money and success he’s had so far my well-wishes won’t amount to much.

More pressingly, however, it seems the higher-ups in Microsoft’s gaming branch might really be jumping ship. Just a coincidence… or do they know something we don’t?