shane-kim posts

Shane Kim has been involved with Microsoft's games division for a long time including a stint as head of their Microsoft Games Studios publishing brand. Now Gamasutra is reporting that Kim plans to retire from his duties at Microsoft by the end of the year.

Kim currently is the corporate vice president, strategy and business development, for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business. Overall, he has been an employee of Microsoft for 19 years. With his departure, Microsoft plans to promote two of their other executives to fill Kim's roles. Phil Spencer will now become corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios and Dennis Durkin will be assigned to the newly created role of COO of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business division.

Microsoft Game Studios revealed to GamesIndustry.biz that Shane Kim, formerly corporate vice-president of the studio, will be assuming the newly-created corporate VP of strategy and business development for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business.

"I'll be leaving my position as the leader of Microsoft Game Studios to run strategy and business development for the overall Interactive Entertainment business," Kim said. Kim will continue to report to Don Mattrick, senior VP of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division of MGS.

Kim then announced Phil Spencer, who previously headed the Europe division of MGS, as his successor. Kim praised Spencer, who "has been a longtime member of Microsoft Game Studios and has worked very closely with me since I assumed leadership."

Kim believes Spencer's succession will be an asset to the company due to Spencer's reputation as "well-known and well-respected" at MGS.

Also departing is Jeff Bell, formerly corporate VP of global marketing, who will be pursuing new opportunities.

Microsoft tried to convince the media and consumers in 2007 that with the release of their Windows Vista OS, the PC would become as important a platform for games as their Xbox 360 console. It's been over a year since the launch of Vista and Microsoft's Games for Windows brand and so far the results have been mixed, partly because of continued hardware and software issues with Vista. Indeed, some consumers are actively asking Microsoft to allow PC makers to continue to offer the older and more reliable Windows XP to be installed on new PCs (Microsoft has decreed that except for low powered laptops, Windows XP cannot be used for new PCs after the end of June 2008).

Our sister site Game Daily got Microsoft Games Studios head Shane Kim to answer a number of reader questions and while most were about the Xbox 360 business one did address their Games for Windows brand. Kim basically gave an "everything is good" answer to their role in the PC game industry, stating, "PC gamers are moving more and more online so you'll see us invest more in this space moving ahead." Kim didn't address concerns that their Games for Windows Live service, which tried to bring the Xbox 360 matchmaking and achievements support to PC games, has not yet gained traction with developers. So far only a handful of PC games have implemented Games for Windows Live since it began in May 2007 and only two titles (Shadowrun and Universe at War: Earth Assault) have bothered to put in the once heavily hyped cross platform multiplayer support.