Microsoft has seemingly been so pleased with its second-party relationship with Lionhead and its boss Peter Molyneux they've decided to make him first-party, too, heading up Microsoft Game Studios (MGS) Europe.
At MGS he will be overseeing "creative output" of all internal studios on top of Microsoft's third-party studios, meaning leading teams in direction, communication and understanding -- a big job, to be sure.
"The best way for us to make sure our platforms evolve in a way that enables the best creative experiences is to make sure our creative leaders are closely tied into the work that's going on with the platform team," says Phil Spencer, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios. "His role there is to not only help the collaborations and to bring both the thinking from that region back to the platform and Microsoft Game Studios as different things are incubating and being worked on, but the reverse is also true, of taking global knowledge of our platform efforts and different efforts at MGS and help provide context and guidance to those teams."
The news should bode well for the pretty much confirmed title Fable II: We Lost Some Chapters Again, though Molyneux says he won't just be pumping out Lionhead properties:
"What you're not going to see is ten Peter Molyneux games. The value of this role is for someone like myself going in and making those little tiny lights of an idea shine as brightly as possible and ensuring everybody within the organisation clearly understands why we're making those titles, the purpose of those titles and their importance to Microsoft overall. All I'm going to be doing is making sure those lights are as bright as possible. People at Rare and other European studios are super, super bright and creative people and I'll learn as much about design from them as they would from me."
"I'm definitely not going to go in and say 'this is a dumb idea' and 'this is a good idea'. I'm more about making sure they really are doing the experiences they're passionate about. Because passion is really central. That's probably going to involve innovation, I'm going to be pushing them more on the innovation side, especially with project Natal, and saying, 'look, don't think you've got all of your design comforts here any more, let's think of a new way of doing all that.'"
We've already seen a taste of what he has in store for us with the Natal-driven interactive character 'Milo', and can't wait to see what else is planned.
Molyneux will still retain his position as Lionhead boss, presumably by some nature-defying feat.
You have our congratulations at Neoseeker, sir!
