SHANNON LOFTIS
General Manager, Studios 1st Publishing, Xbox
Shannon Loftis is General Manager for Studios 1st Publishing on Team Xbox. Shannon has been with Microsoft since 1993, making games for the vast majority of that time.
Shannon studied computer science and mathematics at Duke University. She joined Microsoft in 1993 and quickly migrated to the Entertainment Product Unit. Her earliest work focused on the creation of online card-playing games, utilizing the emerging consumer potential of the internet and social game design. Shannon has been responsible for multiplayer games across all of Microsoft’s gaming platforms (console, PC and Hololens), including the Madness series (Motocross Madness, Monster Truck Madness, and Midtown Madness), Project Gotham Racing, the Fable series, the Viva Pinata series, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and many others. In total, Shannon has contributed to more than 50 games.
Shannon has created and led many global teams in the US and UK, including games publishing teams, interactive television teams, and internal game development studios (most notably Good Science, the team responsible for greenlighting and shipping the Kinect with full-motion games and core in 2010). Currently the Studios Global Publishing team is focused on such AAA franchises as Quantum Break, Ori and the Blind Forest, and the Microsoft Casual Suite.
In her free time, Shannon enjoys playing video games, running, and traveling with her husband and two sons.