An Xbox designer behind Achievements, Game Pass and more has left the company.
Chris Novak started as Xbox’s design director in 2002, before becoming a design architect in 2009 and eventually head of research and design in 2016, when the company again focused on gaming after Xbox One’s entertainment-focused launch.
Novak told Polygon that he had left the Xbox after nearly 20 years to take some time off from work and refocus his life.
“Some of the things that come up for the Xbox that are hugely exciting would be to commit to years of work there,” he said. “It would be great, but will I commit to it? Or will I admit that I am happy with what we have sent?”
This includes the Achievement system, which Novak said reinforced Microsoft’s philosophy that players should be able to play as they please.
Xbox Live was originally scheduled to launch with a maximum of five performances per game. games, Novak said, but playing Project Gotham Racing 2 gave him and the team a clue about these different playing styles – most players wanted to win races, but some wanted to take cool pictures.
One of Novak’s favorite products was Microsoft’s Touch Adaptation Kit, which enabled Xbox games to work on mobile, something he was working on after Xbox boss Phil Spencer focused on cloud games.
“We spent a huge amount of time as part of the xCloud effort with the xCloud engineers to chase it down and make sure all the technology allowed us to render this output to any device,” he said.
Regardless of the product, Novak said the biggest challenge of his job was always to improve and not just change.