Goodbye Boston, Hello Seattle

When I was a kid, whenever my family flew somewhere, my mother would say “goodbye current-City, hello target-City” just as the plane was taking off the ground. This habit inspired a fair bit of eye-rolling during my teenage years (what didn’t?) but lately I catch myself saying it every time I board a plane with my wife. I guess the affliction is sure to be passed on to my future children. Mom will be so proud.

Believe it or not, I have a reason for sharing this fascinating anecdote — I’ve decided on my next career move (and it involves travel.) I’m joining the Xbox Live Arcade team at Microsoft as “Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner”. So… goodbye Boston, hello Seattle!

This whole thing came together fairly recently (and quickly). But if you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you won’t be surprised by my decision. Xbox Live Arcade is one of the most exciting things currently happening in the game industry. The XLA team seems motivated and entrepreneurial, and I can’t wait to join it!

Unfortunately, my decision to join Microsoft will inevitably lead some people to question what I’ve written in the past, and certainly to question what I write in the future. To those people, I can only say:

• I have always been enthusiastic about digital distribution, casual gaming, and XLA in specific — you can go way back into this blog’s archives to see that. If I wasn’t so enthusiastic, I wouldn’t be making this move!
• I can’t deny that working at Microsoft will likely color my perspective going forward. I’ll be exposed to many things which I simply cannot reveal in this blog, but which inevitably will influence my opinions. As such, in the future I’ll strive — in general — to write about more “neutral” subjects (i.e. not console war stuff… though I’m sure I won’t be able to resist a jab from time to time.) I may also find it difficult to continue my current pace of posts… but I really hope not.

It will be a few more weeks before I start. In the meantime, I’m going to be looking for a new home, wrapping up some personal business matters, saying goodbye to friends in Boston, etc. The latter is particularly hard — I’ve made a lot of good friends here, and I’m sorry to leave them. But hey: I’ll have a guest room in my new place, and it isn’t there for nothing. 🙂