Former EA Chicago studio head jumps to Microsoft
Last November when Electronic Arts shut its Chicago studio, EA Games president Frank Gibeau said that pulling the plug on the studio was “the toughest decision I’ve made in my career.” But the plug was fatefully pulled, with a promise to relocate some staffers and offer others severance packages.
One former EA Chicago member that won’t be needing the assistance of EA’s HR department is the studio’s former general manager himself, long-time Electronic Arts exec Kudo Tsunoda. Tsunoda has been offered a post within the Xbox division at Microsoft, a Microsoft staffer confirmed today. Guess which series is he put on? Gears of War….
The move reunites Tsunoda with his former EA Vancouver colleague Don Mattrick, who was hired last year and who now runs the Xbox business under Entertainment and Devices division boss Robbie Bach.
It was at EA’s Vancouver studio that Tsunoda cut his teeth on fighting games (working first on Fight Night 2004). Tsunoda then moved to Chicago from Vancouver to take the reins of EA’s new Chicago studio–a renamed NuFX, an independent that had worked closely with EA on the commercially successful fighting game.
At the time EA Chicago was shuttered by Electronic Arts, Tsunoda and his team were working on a fighting game incorporating a bevy of Marvel super heroes.
Tsunoda’s hire at Microsoft seems in sync with Mattrick’s style. In October, Mattrick lured an even more senior exec from the EA stable–former Tiburon boss and EA’s vice president of worldwide studios John Schappert, hired on at Microsoft to run Xbox Live.
Mattrick’s own history with EA runs back to the early ’90s. It was in 1991 that he sold Distinctive Software, a game studio he founded, to Electronic Arts. EA renamed the studio EA Canada.
Tsunoda takes the title general manager, reporting to Mattrick. His hire is part of a reporting reorg being implemented by Mattrick, say sources–who also say Tsunoda is project lead on an upcoming Gears of War title.
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POSTED IN: Game Publishers, Game Studios, Gears of War, Industry News, Microsoft
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