Xbox Game Studios Changes Leadership – Rare’s Craig Duncan Steps into the Role

The position of head of Xbox Game Studios, Microsoft's portfolio of first-party developers, is changing. Alan Hartman, who stepped into the role last year after Matt Booty became president of Game Content and Studios overseeing Xbox, Bethesda, and Activision Blizzard, is retiring. Before that, Hartman was the Studio Manager of Turn 10 for nearly twenty years, working on the acclaimed Forza and Forza Horizon franchises.

Announcing the news, Matt Booty sent the following email (shared publicly by GamesIndustry) to employees:

Related Story Everwild Is Reportedly Progressing Well, At Long Last

Alan's career has been marked by innovation, dedication, and an unwavering passion for gaming. Starting as a contractor at Microsoft in the fledgling CD-ROM group in 1988, Alan has worked on a variety of projects in his time here, from Age of Empires to Brute Force as the studio head of Digital Anvil to the founding of Turn 10. Over the years, Alan, Turn 10 and Playground Games delivered 13 Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games, building Forza into one of the top racing franchises in the world and regularly pushing the capabilities of our hardware. His work to advance accessibility in gaming has set a benchmark for the industry and under his leadership, Xbox Game Studios has shipped multiple critically acclaimed titles this year and set the stage for highly anticipated games like Avowed, South of Midnight, Fable, and more.

The new head of Xbox Game Studios will be Craig Duncan, who's filled the position of Studio Manager at Rare since March 2011. Booty said:

In his new role, Craig will continue to focus on helping our studios deliver high-quality, differentiated game experiences that can grow into successful franchises and reach more players by investing in new IP.

In turn, Craig Duncan is being replaced at Rare by Joe Neate, who produced Sea of Thieves, and Jim Horth. Earlier today, we also reported an unrelated rumor that the Everwild team is finally making good progress,