James Allard was born in Glens Falls, New York on January 12th, 1969 and served as Microsoft’s Chief Experience Officer and Chief Technology Officer for the Entertainment and Devices Division of the company for a number of years. During the early to mid 2000’s, he was a key figure in the Xbox and Xbox 360’s rise to fame.

E3 2005: J Allard and Paul Gale

The first time that I met J was at E3 2005 where we were introduced by my old Rare/Microsoft friend Ken Lobb. Prior to the show, I wrote a script for Perfect Dark Zero or Perfect Dark: After Dark (two of the names I was toying with for the prequel/sequel to the original game) and shared it with Ken and others and Microsoft. When I got to the show I spoke with J about my ideas for the game and he was very receptive and encouraging. The fact that an industry figure such as Mr. Allard was willing to hear me out was highly appreciated and from then on, whenever we spoke, we had some great video game discussions.

E3 2005: J Allard and Paul Gale (fortunately J said, “let’s take another one”)

J has been around before the Xbox era with involvement in launching mid 90’s Windows technology and oversaw the development of Microsoft’s Zune. As of May, 2010, Allard is now retired from Microsoft but will remain as one of the company’s advisers. One of his final internal e-mails to Microsoft employees was entitled “Decide. Change. Reinvent.” This was his attempt to create inspiration within Microsof after he left. With Kinect performing well thus far, it looks like Microsoft has a nice future in the video game industry. Thank you for always being a positive person to speak with, J, and I wish you the best of success in whatever else you do in life from here on out.