Xbox multimedia executive Blair Westlake has resigned from Microsoft because the company is moving in a direction not suited to his strengths, he confirmed in a statement to Hollywood news site Variety.
“It has become clear to me that the organization is moving in a direction that does not fit either my expertise or my skill sets,” Westlake said in a statement. He attended the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show on Microsoft’s behalf just last week.
Westlake, a former Universal Television chairman, joined Microsoft in 2004 where he spearheaded the company’s media partnerships and oversaw licensing of TV shows and movies for Xbox platforms.
According to Variety, Westlake was one of Microsoft’s “biggest champions” of online entertainment, and was instrumental in helping the Xbox platform become a destination for movies and TV, not just games.
Microsoft hired former CBS Television executive Nancy Tellem in 2012 to head up the company’s Xbox Entertainment Studios, which will create exclusive video franchises for Xbox platforms. The first project from Xbox Entertainment Studios is a documentary series due out this year that will investigate the events surrounding the 1983 burial of millions of copies of Atari’s famously unsuccessful E.T. movie tie-in.
