Xbox Game Studios has a new head today, with former Rare studio head Craig Duncan taking over the role – but who exactly is he?
The Verge reported today that current Xbox Game Studios head Alan Hartman will retire this November after more than 30 years at the company. Hartman took over the role last year after former head Matt Booty was promoted to president of games content and studios. Taking over the role now is Craig Duncan, who has been studio head at Sea of Thieves and Banjo Kazooie developer Rare since 2011. Then continue his work on Sea of Thieves.
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“In his new role, Craig will continue to focus on helping our studio deliver high-quality, differentiated gaming experiences that can be developed into successful franchises and attract new IP by investing in them. More players,” Booty said of Hartman. “Alan’s career has been marked by innovation, dedication and an unwavering passion for gaming… His work in improving gaming accessibility “His work has set the standard for the industry, and under his leadership, Xbox Game Studios launched several critically acclaimed games this year and laid the foundation for highly anticipated titles.”
Duncan has had quite a long career in the games industry, having worked on games such as Colin McRae’s while at Codemasters, as well as other games such as Clive Barker’s Jericho and Overlord at the same studio. He later worked on games like Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing and Dead Space Ignition at Sumo Digital, before eventually taking over as head of studio at Rare, a developer with a slew of games under its belt but one that’s apparently best known as of late. Zhizhi.
It’s quite a leap from head of studio to head of Xbox Game Studios, but Rare is indeed one of Microsoft’s strongest studios right now, even if we haven’t really heard anything about Everwild in a while. News. The move is also the latest major change Microsoft has experienced – it has been repeatedly discussing for a year whether its games will be released on PS5 (some have already been released, some will be released soon), and to enter the mobile device and Xbox markets. It will be very different.
