Xbox Co-Creator Nat Brown Joins Apple

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.

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.

Apple did not do so in 2013, but later did open up the ‌Apple TV‌ to apps and games with a dedicated ‌Apple TV‌ App Store. Unfortunately, the ‌Apple TV‌ ‌App Store‌ hasn't exactly been a console killer.

It's not clear what specific graphics applications Brown will be working on at Apple, and it's not known if he will be joining Apple's rumored AR/VR team.