# Ed Fries, former head of Microsoft Game Studios.

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/my-perfect-console-with-simon-parkin-5970647/ed-fries-former-head-of-microsoft-game-studios
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/my-perfect-console-with-simon-parkin-5970647/ed-fries-former-head-of-microsoft-game-studios.md
Podcast: [My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin](https://stenobird.com/podcast/my-perfect-console-with-simon-parkin-5970647)
Published: 2026-02-24T06:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/my-perfect-console/episodes/ed-fries-former-head-of-microsoft-game-studios
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/63b458521043e00011114396/e/6996028f4c238f5dca0764ab/media.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/my-perfect-console-with-simon-parkin-5970647/episodes/ed-fries-former-head-of-microsoft-game-studios
Duration seconds: 6019

## Resource

My guest today is a video game executive whose career spans the medium’s earliest home computers to the rise of the modern console business. He created his first games for the  Atari 800  in the early 1980s, before joining  Microsoft  in 1986, where he spent a decade as an early developer on  Excel  and  Word .  In 1996, he left the Office team to pursue his passion for games, founding  Microsoft Game Studios  and laying the groundwork for the company’s entry into interactive entertainment. Over the next eight years, he grew the division from fifty people to more than twelve hundred, publishing over a hundred games—including more than a dozen million-sellers—and co-founding the original  Xbox  project.  Since retiring from Microsoft in 2004, he has worked as an advisor, board member, and investor, and in 2019 helped launch  1Up Ventures , a fund dedicated to supporting independent game developers around the world. Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Take the Acast listener survey to help shape the show: My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin Survey 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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