Chris Novak, head of Xbox research and design, has left Microsoft.
As of his departure, Novak has been with Microsoft for nearly 20 years, leading user experience research and design for more than 5 years.
In addition, Novak has served as Xbox Design Director and Design Architect.
In the aforementioned roles, Novak led user experience design for several large-scale projects including Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Xbox Live.
Novak said: “Microsoft is where I learned and grew up in the melting pot of the game industry, it is the best game company in the world, I have lived through its best and worst times, and I cherish this learning experience very much. “
Microsoft and its flagship console were at a critical juncture when Novak took over research and design for the Xbox.
When it launched the Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft’s misguided marketing strategy didn’t make the console stand out: The Xbox 360 managed to attract a lot of gamers, but Microsoft wanted the Xbox One to be a full-fledged entertainment system.
The launch of the Xbox One was a disaster, and its focus was on everything but video games.
Microsoft quickly realized it had to win back lost gamers, but it never completely gave up hope for an entertainment platform.
Novak took over as Xbox’s head of research and design just after Microsoft publicly pushed hard on the idea of Xbox focusing primarily on video games.
While consoles are still very important, an even more exciting idea for Xbox leadership is the freedom to play Xbox games on different devices, and the launch of Xbox play Anywhere opens up access to games on both PC and console ‘s precedent.
Novak points to Microsoft’s touch adapter kit for Xbox cloud gaming as an achievement he is particularly proud of during his career at the company.
“How big is the challenge when you’re trying to build an entire gaming experience on a device that’s never been designed for? That’s the challenge we face, and as part of the xCloud work, we spend a lot of time, working with xCloud engineers,” he said. It’s one of my proudest moments to work together to make that happen and let’s bring the output of the game experience to any device.”
Another fond memory for Novak is the Xbox photo style and results, with Xbox Live initially launching with almost only a limited number of five results.
Novak and his team realized through the Project Gotham Racing series that these achievements reinforce Microsoft’s philosophy that different styles of racing are acceptable.
In Gotham Motorsport 2, most players want to win races and run as fast as possible, but there are also players who want to take photos of storefronts and explore their surroundings in-game; A stronger belief in doing things your own way, a mantra that the company has embraced for decades.
Novak believes that the biggest challenge for him is the experimental changes in balance that determine player comfort.
Novak said: “Building new content is very easy, but optimizing it is difficult, and most players want their game experience to be comfortable, familiar, and fast. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly connect players with what they want, and whenever When you do something new, you might ask players to use different buttons or think about different processes, and they might be disappointed.”
“Achieving that balance is an ongoing challenge,” Novak said.
Novak said he left Microsoft to take time from work and refocus on his life. Three years ago, Novak lost a very close person who said he wanted to learn something new while on vacation, and he wouldn’t jump to a new company right away.
Congratulations to this veteran!
This article was published with the authorization of Lei Feng.com, and the original title is “Microsoft’s 20-year veteran Chris Novak leaves, who led the Xbox Game Pass user experience effort」