Xbox research and development lead Chris Novak leaving Microsoft

If you have ever subscribed to Game Pass, or obsess over Xbox Achievements, then you are familiar with Chris Novak’s work.

The head of Xbox research and design is leaving the company after nearly 20 years. Novak, who has been leading the user experience research efforts and designing them for over five years now, previously served as Xbox design director. Across these roles, Novak was responsible for user experience in many of the company’s biggest projects, including Xbox Game Pass, along with cloud gaming and Xbox Live.

“Microsoft has been where I’ve gotten to learn in the crucible of gaming, from the world’s best across the industry,” Novak told Polygon. It’s been both its greatest and worst moments that I have seen it. That learning experience is what I treasure .”

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Photo: Chris Novak

Novak took over Microsoft’s Xbox research and design at a turning point for the company and its flagship console. When the Xbox One launched in 2013, Microsoft’s marketing strategy failed the console: The Xbox 360 had succeeded in capturing a major gaming audience, but Microsoft looked to the Xbox One to become a full-on entertainment system. The Xbox One reveal was a notorious disaster, focusing on everything but video games. Microsoft realized quickly that it needed to win gamers back, and has not abandoned the entertainment platform.

Novak came on as head of Xbox research and design right after Microsoft was pushing hard, publicly, on the idea of Xbox being focused primarily on video games. While consoles were still important, the more exciting idea for Xbox leadership was the freedom to play Xbox games on different devices, beginning with the launch of Xbox Play Anywhere, which let players access games on a Windows PC or a console.

Xbox leader Phil Spencer dialed into a singular idea: Gamers should be able to play games anywhere, using the Xbox ecosystem. Xbox’s leadership placed a strong emphasis on cloud streaming to bring Xbox to mobile devices. Novak pointed to Microsoft’s Touch Adaptation Kit for Xbox Cloud Gaming as a particularly proud moment in his career at the company.

Image: Bizarre Creations, Ltd./Microsoft Game Studios

“How big is that challenge when you’re trying to build experiences of entire games on a device that it was never designed for? Novak stated that this was Novak’s challenge. Novak said that the xCloud team spent a lot of time working with the engineers to track down the problem and ensure that the output could be rendered to all devices. […] That is one of my proudest moments.”

Another feature he looks back to fondly is Xbox’s photo modes and achievements; Xbox Live originally almost launched with a limit of just five achievements. Novak and his team realized with Project Gotham Racing 2 that achievements reinforced Microsoft’s philosophy that different styles of play were acceptable. In Project Gotham Racing 2, most people wanted to win races and go fast, but some players wanted to take photos of shopfronts and to explore environments; a wide variety of achievements reinforced the idea of playing your way, a mantra that stayed with Novak and the company for decades.

Novak said that the biggest challenge was to balance experimental changes and keeping it comfortable for players. “It’s very easy to build things which are new but not better,” Novak said. Novak stated that most gamers want their gaming experience familiar, fast and comfortable. They should feel connected to what they are looking for as quickly as possible. If you try to do something different, it might make them think of a new flow or use another button. They might get frustrated by the .”

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Image: Microsoft

Novak continued: “Getting that balance is a continuous challenge.”

Novak announced that he is leaving Microsoft in order to take a break from Microsoft and refocus his personal life. After losing a person close to him three years ago, Novak said he wanted to take time off to learn new things. He won’t move on to a new company immediately.

“I’m just about to be 20 years with Xbox,” Novak said. Novak stated that some of the exciting things coming to Xbox include putting in years of hard work. That would be incredible. Do I really want to do that? Or do I want to acknowledge that I’m happy with what we’ve shipped? Do I actually need to go out on my own and continue my own learning journey, trying some other things. If I don’t do that now, when do I do that?”