<p>My guest today is a video game executive whose career spans the medium’s earliest home computers to the rise of the modern console business. He created his first games for the&nbsp;<strong>Atari 800</strong>&nbsp;in the early 1980s, before joining&nbsp;<strong>Microsoft</strong>&nbsp;in 1986, where he spent a decade as an early developer on&nbsp;<strong>Excel</strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Word</strong>.&nbsp;</p><br><p>In 1996, he left the Office team to pursue his passion for games, founding&nbsp;<strong>Microsoft Game Studios</strong>&nbsp;and laying the groundwork for the company’s entry into interactive entertainment. Over the next eight years, he grew the division from fifty people to more than twelve hundred, publishing over a hundred games—including more than a dozen million-sellers—and co-founding the original&nbsp;<strong>Xbox</strong>&nbsp;project.&nbsp;</p><br><p>Since retiring from Microsoft in 2004, he has worked as an advisor, board member, and investor, and in 2019 helped launch&nbsp;<strong>1Up Ventures</strong>, a fund dedicated to supporting independent game developers around the world.</p><p>Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole</p><br><p>Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: <a href="http://bit.ly/myperfectconsolewithsimonparkin-survey" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025</a></p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>