Kinect creative director Kudo Tsunoda has left Xbox, but not Microsoft

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Well bam! There he goes

Kudo Tsunoda, the creative director behind the Kinect since back when it was known as Project Natal, has left the Xbox division of Microsoft to work on non-gaming projects for the company. You might know him as the “Well BAM! There it is!” guy from E3 a few years back.

An email sent out to employees by Microsoft Windows and Devices Group’s vice president Terry Myerson confirmed that Tsunoda would no longer be involved in Kinect development, and would instead be working on things such as Microsoft Edge and the HoloLens.

Tsunoda will be tasked with refining ways of interacting with these devices through voice and gesture, so there’s certainly some overlap with what he did with the Kinect.

As well as the Kinect, Tsunoda also led various first party Xbox development studios such as Rare, Lionhead, and Twisted Pixel. Replacing him will be Hanno Lemke, general manager of Microsoft Studios Europe, and Shannon Loftis, general manager of Microsoft Studios Publishing.

Both have already had plenty of experience managing the same studios Tsunoda did, so this probably isn’t the earthquake it could’ve been.

It looks like this might be the final nail in the coffin for the Kinect.

Xbox’s Kudo Tsunoda moves to new role at Microsoft [Polygon]

Kudo Tsunoda, the creative director behind the Kinect since right back when it was known as Project Natal, has left the Xbox division of Microsoft to work on non-gaming projects for the company. You might know him as the “Well BAM! There it is!” guy from E3 a few years back.

An email sent out to employees by Microsoft Windows and Devices Group’s vice president Terry Myerson confirmed that Tsunoda would no longer be involved in Kinect development, and would instead be working on things such as Microsoft Edge and the Hololens.

Tsunoda will be tasked with refining ways of interacting with these devices through voice and gesture, so there’s certainly some overlap with what he did with the Kinect.

As well as the Kinect, Tsunoda also lead various first party Xbox development studios such as Rare, Lionhead, and Twisted Pixel. Replacing him will be Hanno Lemke, general manager of Microsoft Studios Europe, and Shannon Loftis, general manager of Microsoft Studios Publishing.

Both have already had plenty of experience managing the same studios Tsuonda did, so this probably isn’t the earthquake it could’ve been.

It looks like this might be the final nail in the coffin for the Kinect.