Microsoft's former Xbox communication head Larry Hryb has joined Unity's Community team

One of Microsoft's most public figures in its Xbox division for many years now has a new gig. Larry Hryb, who departed Microsoft in September 2023, has just announced on his X account that he has been hired by the Unity game development tool company.

In his X post, Hryb stated he would be joining the Community team at Unity, although he did not state what his specific title would be. He did state that he was "excited to collaborate again with developers, harnessing our collective creativity to shape the future of real-time gaming and experiences."

Hryb, better known by many in the Xbox community by his gamertag of Major Nelson, worked at Microsoft for over 20 years. He became a familiar face when he joined the Xbox division in 2003, hosting live and streaming events, running his Major Nelson podcast, and more, He was finally named as the Senior Director for Corporate Communications for the Xbox division in 2012.

Hryb is joining Unity at an interesting time in its corporate history. In September 2023, it announced changes in pricing for its Unity Runtime code that include a per-install fee. That change resulted in a backlash against it by Unity developers. The company quickly backtracked on most of those changes.

Unity has also suffered from some major job cuts in the past several months. In November 2023, it laid off 265 team members, due to the company terminating parts of an earlier agreement with Weta Digital. In January, it announced much bigger job cuts of 1,800 employees, or about 25 percent of its work force at the time.