A massive wave of layoffs at Microsoft has affected one of Xbox's key veterans. Kevin LaChapelle, who served as Vice President of Xbox Platform and worked for the company for 37 years, announced his departure.
LaChapelle announced his departure on his LinkedIn page. According to him, during his years of work, he managed to participate in many Microsoft projects, but he considers his main achievement to be leading the team of engineers who created the Xbox backward compatibility program.
The developer recalled the announcement of the feature at E3 2015, noting that the audience's reaction to the presentation was one of the brightest moments of his career. Later, he also led the team that worked on the Xbox Cloud Gaming service. Despite his dismissal, LaChapelle stated that he still believes in the future of cloud gaming and wished Xbox further success.
It is thanks to the backward compatibility program that owners of modern Xbox consoles can run many games from the original Xbox and Xbox 360 using old discs. This feature has long been considered one of the main advantages of the Microsoft ecosystem and has repeatedly received high praise from players.
The Xbox Cloud Gaming service, on the other hand, allows you to run games via the cloud on both consoles and other devices. Microsoft has been actively developing this area in recent years, but it has not yet gained such widespread popularity among the main Xbox audience.