Amazon.com is getting a big name in gaming today as Andrew Vrignaud has announced his resignation as Microsoft’s director of platform strategy as he takes a position at the leading online retailer.
Posting to his personal blog, Vrignaud hints at a gaming related venture for Amazon. Though he doesn’t give any details, he does offer hints. “Well, I guess I'll just cut to the chase and say that I'm moving on from Microsoft to take a new role at Amazon. Can't really talk about details at this point, but it'll become pretty evident soon enough… and you all know where my passions lie.”
Vrignaud was responsible for selling the gaming industry onto Xbox Live. His eight year employment at Microsoft started with taking on the direction of Xbox Live platform strategy back in 2002. After a brief run with Intel as their director for games platform strategy, he returned to Microsoft in 2004 as the director of games platform strategy.
Speaking about his experiences on the development of Xbox Live, Vrignaud is more than happy with the results. “Not many people remember now, but there was a time when even the idea of Xbox Live was extremely controversial. We got… robust, shall we say feedback on a variety of subjects. I remember folks insisting that voice would never be desired from the console audience, or that this whole crazy digital content download Marketplace thing would never take off. And of course, quite a few folks struggled to believe that Xbox Live would be a service that people would be willing to pay for. 25 million+ members later I think that debate has finally been put to rest.”
Vrignaud is the latest in a string of resignations from big names within Microsoft’s Xbox team.
1 Comments
September 7, 2010
Sadly that idea succeeded and has lead down a dark path for gamers and the future is getting dimmer. Even with his input amazon would probably only setup a pay service to somehow get you more games for cheaper than those without the service. Other than that they probably just want to get better organized and grab some of that steam crowd and more.