Following a four-year stint at Valve, Xbox co-creator Nat Brown has now taken on a role at Apple, announcing his new position on Twitter.
Brown said that he has an obsession with platform ecosystems and systems engineering, and he’s looking forward to continuing his work in these areas at Apple. Brown says that he will be “focusing on all applications of graphics” and working with developers using graphics on Apple platforms.
Prior to joining Apple, Brown was working as a VR engineer on Valve’s VR team, but Valve laid off its VR team earlier this year. Before he was at Valve, Brown was one of the first engineers to join the Xbox project back in 1999.
Back in 2013, Brown shared a blog post arguing that the Apple TV had the potential to destroy console gaming thanks to its support of third-party apps. Microsoft and other gaming platforms now support indie games, but at the time, Brown argued that Apple could have killed the Playstation and the Xbox by introducing a game ecosystem for the Apple TV. From Brown’s 2013 blog post:
Apple, if it chooses to do so, will simply kill Playstation, Wii-U and xBox by introducing an open 30%-cut app/game ecosystem for Apple-TV. I already make a lot of money on iOS – I will be the first to write apps for Apple-TV when I can, and I know I’ll make money. I would for xBox if I could and I knew I would make money. Maybe a “console-capable” Apple-TV isn’t $99, maybe it’s $199, and add another $79 for a controller.
Read more at macrumors.com