J Allard, one of the co-founders of the Xbox project in 1999, has joined Amazon. The online retail giant has been making moves into the video gaming space since 2010, but its ambitions really began to be realized with the release of New World in 2021, which will be relaunching as New World: Aeternum on October 15. Amazon also has a number of other projects in development, both announced and unannounced, including an untitled Tomb Raider game being developed by Crystal Dynamics and a Lord of the Rings MMORPG being created in collaboration with Embracer’s Middle-earth Enterprises.
J Allard, for his part, spent more than 20 years at Microsoft, working on a number of recognizable projects. Most notable for gamers was the businessman’s participation in the creation of the original Xbox and the development of the Xbox Live network, as well as recruiting some of the third-party developers whose games went on to make the console so memorable. After the launch of Xbox 360 in 2007, Allard became chief technology and experience officer and began work on the Zune MP3 player and eventually the Courier tablet. That unannounced project was cancelled in 2010, and Allard left the company...
