UNBOXED

gostino Simonetta spent close to seven years in charge of developer partnerships. That’s as long as Microsoft’s indie initiative has been up and running. So why leave? “I wasn’t running away from Xbox. I loved my job at Xbox,” he says. But after a career that has spanned Sony, THQ and Sega, he wanted a role that would let him apply all he’s learned, and take him closer to his roots, “in a small indie studio, working in the basement of an Italian villa by the seaside”. Now based in Woking, there might not much Mediterrenean sunshine to be found, but he does appreciate the chance to be back outside of the “corporate environment”.