Hello, everybody! Wynn right here once more. Welcome again to a different Xbox Insider Staff interview. As we speak’s chat is with Andrew—a Buyer Expertise Supervisor on the staff who positively has extra Xbox 360 video games than you do.

How’s it going, Andrew?

Ha. Going effectively, Wynn. You didn’t need to name me out like that proper from the highest.

If there’s one factor I would like Xbox Insiders to know from this interview, it’s that you’re Xbox 360’s #1 fan and supporter. It’s like that meme. If there aren’t any extra Xbox 360 followers, then we will know you’ve shed your mortal coil.

I can get behind that.

However earlier than we dive into your 7^th gen obsessions, let’s take all of it the way in which again. Give us the backstory. What began your curiosity in video games?

I’ve been taking part in video games my total life, at the same time as a really small little one. I’m courting myself slightly right here, however my first console was an Atari Pong residence console.

That’s about as OG as you may get.

Yup! And I’ve been taking part in ever since. All the way in which from Mario to Halo, which is absolutely what acquired me closely into the Xbox ecosystem.

Did you discover your love for the 360 earlier than or after you began right here?

Earlier than. I used to be on that prepare instantly. You keep in mind the Xbox Reside Arcade when it first launched? I used to be sitting on my console each Wednesday getting nearly each single recreation because it got here out. It’s actually my love for the 360 that made me need to begin working at Xbox. I grew up in rural Ohio, so it wasn’t actually a giant tech hub.

So how way back did you get employed?

I feel round 13 years in the past or so. Proper initially of the 2010s I acquired employed to do Twitter Help for Xbox. I used to be a kind of outdated brokers the place we’d reply to tweets or DMs with our initials.

Oh wow! I truly did one thing comparable after I was within the retail shops. Should you clicked “Help” on Outlook Cell in like 2015-2017, you could have talked to me. It’s a more durable job than folks would possibly assume.

Yeah, you discuss folks by way of so many various points daily. You turn out to be a really well-oiled help machine after some time.

Completely. If I attempted exhausting sufficient, I might in all probability keep in mind a few of the error codes.

Similar right here. I keep in mind many.

So, how lengthy did you probably did work on Help?

Effectively, I did the Twitter stuff for about six years. Labored my method up the ladder earlier than I moved over to a program administration place on the Help Staff. Then, I did that for a number of years earlier than transferring to the Insider staff the place I nonetheless kinda do a variety of help. So, actually in some methods, I’m nonetheless Help, however I left the official “Help” group again in 2021.

Is there something you’re at the moment engaged on that you would be able to inform the Xbox Insider group about?

I’m not engaged on an excessive amount of for Xbox Insider particularly proper now, although I’m all the time making an attempt to enhance the options we flight by way of this system. I suppose probably the most fascinating stuff I’m doing—that may even be fascinating to this viewers—is that I’m engaged on all of our legacy Xbox 360 providers.

Okay, that’s sick.

Yeah, I’ve been on that staff for some time now and it’s one thing I’m extraordinarily captivated with. I imagine now we have to do all the things we will to finest protect and recognize our historical past earlier than we will actually transfer into the longer term.

I’m totally with you there on that man. I do know I joked about it earlier than, however I need to let our readers know that you just do have nearly each bodily Xbox 360 disc.

Effectively, each North American disc. I don’t have a PAL or JPN 360 but, so I don’t purposefully accumulate these in the mean time.

My JPN 360 is accumulating mud, however I’ve a bunch of Visible Novels that I ought to play someday on it. Since we’re speaking about your favourite system, do you could have a favourite second in time from engaged on it because you’ve been right here?

Man, I’ve finished so many issues truly for the Xbox 360, however I can’t actually speak about most of them; even on reflection. However I do have considered one of my most cherished recreation collections gadgets from working right here.

Let’s hear it.

So, after I began again in 2011, I used to be already pounding my drum about a lot I like the blades on the outdated 360 dashboard.

I feel when you hear exhausting sufficient, that’s a refrain of voices from our group shouting out in settlement proper now.

Haha. I nonetheless assume it’s the best console working system of all time. However yeah, I used to be actually captivated with telling everybody I might how a lot I cherished that OS. Quick ahead to round 2017-2018, I had simply transferred over to a brand new CSS position, and I used to be speaking about my love for the blades with my new staff. Effectively, a long-tenured teammate confirmed up at my workplace a few week later. Seems, he labored on the {hardware} staff, and he had an outdated 360 that also had the blades dashboard on it saved in his archives. He gifted it to me and now It’s considered one of my favourite issues I personal. A real gem in my assortment which means rather a lot to me personally.

I like that a lot. I might give a not-insignificant portion of a paycheck to determine what all now we have buried in workplaces round campus. So many cool methods hidden away.

Yeah man. Some folks have held onto some actually cool stuff for the complete 20-year run.

Okay, let’s transfer on to a few of the extra rapid-fire stuff.

What’s a recreation that’s had the most important affect on you all through the years?

Hmm. I’m unsure I can choose only one. However there’s an evolution in my tastes and my curiosity within the medium over time. Like Pong was my intro to video games and I believed it was fairly cool, however the first Tremendous Mario Bros. is after I knew I used to be going to be taking part in them for the remainder of my life.

It’s exhausting to understate simply how revolutionary it was to have performed that in that point interval.

Precisely. It paved the way in which for a lot. Even rising up my favourite recreation, and possibly nonetheless my favourite recreation of all time is Tremendous Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. I might play that recreation again and again and over. I by no means get uninterested in it. If I transfer extra into my grownup life, I feel that those that impacted me probably the most are Portal and Braid. Portal as a result of it taught me to really take pleasure in tales in video games, and Braid as a result of it was the primary actually difficult puzzle recreation I performed. It unlocked design-language in my thoughts that I simply didn’t have beforehand.

You’re choosing simply banger after banger. I’m shocked by the Portal choose although. Not as a result of it’s not a terrific recreation, however I do know you’re what I wish to name a “mechanical purist” in terms of video games.

Oh yeah. I actually can’t stand textual content in my video games. RPGs are my least-favorite style ever. I simply need to play the sport. However the way in which Portal gave me the mechanical depth, but additionally saved me within the over-arching story from second to second gave me a greater appreciation for narrative in video games.

As somebody who in all probability has extra RPGs in my assortment than another style, my knuckles is perhaps altering colours, however I respect your opinion.

Let’s transfer on to music although. Favourite albums of all time?

I’ve twenty-one information framed and held on the wall of my front room which are the most effective music ever pressed. However for the sake of brevity, I’ll go along with Illmatic by Nas and The Undisputed Fact by Brother Ali.

I might have by no means in 1,000,000 years have guessed these solutions.

Haha. You count on the everyday like Aerosmith or Nirvana? Nah, most of what I hearken to is rap and hip-hop from the 80s by way of the 2010s.

Actually, I’m unsure what I anticipated, but it surely wasn’t these.

So, now I’m curious. How does a white man from rural Ohio get into this model of music?

I noticed the video for Battle the Energy on MTV after I was seven years outdated. It was speedy. Flav drew me in, and Chuck taught me classes. From there it was a wrap. Rakim, EPMD, LL, De La Soul; you identify it, I used to be listening to it. I positively acquired made enjoyable of for liking this sort of music rising up within the space the place I got here from. It wasn’t actually till 2Pac blew up that folks began getting slightly extra into it. However even then, I’d attempt to present somebody the brand new Tribe Known as Quest document and so they’d name it wack as a result of it was nonetheless too totally different from the hip-hop that was discovering wider success on the time.

I like when folks go actually deep into their musical leanings. I principally listened to no matter my dad was listening to rising up. It wasn’t till highschool that I acquired into my very own music tastes. Plenty of “scene” music. Publish-hardcore, metalcore, and many others. Something on Rise or Victory or Sumerian. I’ve a lot of that period of music.

I’ve a ton of CDs. Like, in all probability over 5 thousand of them again residence in Ohio organized by launch date. I knew nearly all the things there was within the hip hop world from the 80s till 2010. However there have been like 10 totally different albums dropping daily and I couldn’t sustain anymore.

5 THOUSAND?!

Yeah man. I spent like all of my cash as a child on CDs. I keep in mind this one time I skipped a faculty discipline journey to stroll to the document retailer and get the brand new Ghostface album.

That was the period earlier than Spotify and all the things. How did you even discover that a lot music?

Within the mid to late 90s, a rapper named Large L acquired me actually into the underground scene and I’d hearken to radio from in all places. 888hiphop.com, PhillaFlavaDrop.com, Rhymesayers.web, I used to be tremendous into these items. I’d go watch battles and see folks earlier than they blew up. It was only a world I used to be totally immersed in.

Dude, I need to spend one other hour speaking about all of this, however we gotta wrap up quickly. Particularly since this subsequent query I tailor made for you.

Do you could have any TV exhibits that you just all the time have on within the background?

Ha! Okay, you bought me. Sure, I’ve in all probability had 4-5 episodes of Buddies taking part in on my TV daily for so long as the present has been off-air. Effectively, that and South Park.

Means again after I initially had the thought for these, the rationale this query got here up is we had like three conferences collectively in at some point and there was all the time a present on within the background of your digital camera. I’m positively not a “can simply hearken to it” type of man, so I believed it’d be enjoyable to see everybody on the staff.

Actually, I might in all probability recite a number of of my favourite episodes.

Now that’s leisure. We might possibly cost for that.

Okay, transferring away from media, do you could have any hobbies exterior of the home?

I’m actually into sports activities. I took trip days to look at the start of March Insanity. I watch a variety of faculty soccer as effectively.

Wait. I do know this one. O-H!

I’m Ohio State’s worst enemy.

Whelp! That backfired. Haha.

Yeah, I’m a Michigan fan.

Even higher! You had a terrific yr.

For the primary time in my lifetime, sure. I used to be ecstatic.

Every other groups you take pleasure in? I gained’t danger guessing the Bengals, the Reds, or another Oihio-based sports activities entity.

Good! As a result of I’m all about groups not from my state. Payments, Tar Heels, Penguins, Celts, Pirates. Can’t say I’ve an excessive amount of hometown satisfaction there.

Oh. I additionally actually take pleasure in MMA. I get a bunch of buddies collectively and we watch all of the PPVs.

As an Atlanta sports activities fan, I typically want I hadn’t grown up with my hometown groups.

All proper, effectively we’re out of time. Any last ideas for our Xbox Insiders?

That is going to return to that concept of preserving historical past. If there’s a primary level in what I’m doing, it’s that I deal with historical past over the longer term. I would like in 60 years folks to nonetheless be capable to entry their video games library, and like hand down their Gamertag to their grandkids or no matter. That’s my very best dream state. My video games assortment is probably the most helpful factor I personal aside from my home, and I do know that lots of people make investments their time, cash, and vitality into these ecosystems. I need to do all the things I can to make sure we’re respecting that funding and enabling folks to maintain taking part in lengthy after we’ve turned to mud.

That’s highly effective stuff man. Extremely said.

Andrew, thanks a lot for taking the time to speak with everybody at the moment. It’s been nice!

Thanks for setting this up, Wynn. Till subsequent time!

Xbox Insiders, make sure to be looking out for extra content material all all through February together with extra interviews from the staff, a visit down reminiscence lane, and a lot extra. All of our tenth Anniversary content material may be discovered on our Hub Web page.

Till subsequent time! Wynn/