Kim Swift, former Portal lead developer and Left 4 Dead designer, has joined Xbox as director of cloud gaming.
The company's announcement on Twitter mentioned Swift will help advance one of Xbox's three chief pillars, Innovation, through collaboration with independent studios on cloud projects.
Swift comes to Xbox after a two-year period as game design director at Google Stadia, before Stadia closed down its development branches.
While there's no word yet what studios Swift might work with, head of Xbox Game Studios publishing Peter Wyse told Polygon that Swift will "build a team focused on new experiences in the cloud, something that’s going to support our mission of bringing our Xbox games to connect 3 billion gamers to play our games."
Read more: Everything we know about Xbox's Project xCloud so far
Kim Swift Joins Xbox to Promote Innovation in Cloud Gaming
GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb also teased that Xbox's publishing partners include Hideo Kojima and his long-rumored new game - whatever that ends up being.
Kojima's studio could technically be considered one of Xbox's independent publishing partners, but even if Grubb's joke turned out to be true later, Kim has more to focus on than just Kojima.
Xbox recently rolled out its first big xCloud beta, and the future of cloud gaming is more than just playing the latest releases on an underpowered PC.
Xbox is also working to make current-gen releases, such as Forza Horizon 5, playable on last gen Xbox One systems.
[Source: Twitter]
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