Darrell Gallagher, the prior Head of Western Development for Crystal Dynamics, has joined the Microsoft Studios Executive Team. Gallagher left Crystal Dynamics in 2015 to join Activision for a couple of years but will now work under Matt Booty at Microsoft Studios.
More intriguing, is the fact that Booty specifically mentions E3 in his announcement of Gallagher’s hire on Twitter. Of course, this is leading to speculation that new first party studios are being spun up with Gallagher’s oversight.
I'm thrilled to welcome Darrell Gallagher @DGallagher_LA to the Microsoft Studios executive leadership team. Excited to share more at E3.
— Matt Booty (@mattbooty) April 16, 2018
Our Take
There have been calls for Microsoft to expand their first party offerings for a couple of years now and Phil Spencer has been quite clear that it was a work in progress. Gallagher’s hire is a promising one and we’re certainly interested to hear what they plan to announce at E3.