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Microsoft’s Boyd Multerer, Former Xbox Live Lead, Departs Company
Another key employee has departed Microsoft’s Xbox team. Boyd Multerer, who lead development of Xbox Live, has left the company.
Multerer shared the news via Twitter today. “Goodbye Microsoft. It was a good run,” he writes. “Xbox was Great! Time to do something new.”
In a recent internal profile featured on Microsoft’s website, Multerer is described as “the man responsible for Xbox Live” and “the father of the popular XNA video game programming language.”
Most recently before departing the company, Multerer served as director of development on the Xbox One. He joined the company in 1994 as a contract employee while running his own software company. He was brought on full-time three years later to work on the original Xbox and became the first person on the Live team.
In the interview conducted following the release of the Xbox One, Multerer says he was taking sabbatical and would be working on undisclosed projects upon his return. Microsoft has not responded to our request for comment as of the time of publication. For more, you can read an interview with Multerer from the Xbox One reveal.
Update: Microsoft has responded to our request for comment. “We are grateful for Boyd’s considerable contributions over 18 years, including the vital roles he played in engineering and launching Xbox Live and Xbox One, and creating the XNA game-development language,” a representative told us via email.
[Source: Boyd Multerer on Twitter, Microsoft via VentureBeat, Image: Microsoft]
Our Take
Microsoft has slowly been bidding farewell to many responsible for the development of the Xbox One. We’re eager to hear about how Multerer’s role changed following the launch of the console and under new leadership after Don Mattrick and Marc Whitten’s departures.
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