Dan Greenawalt Retires After 27 Years at Microsoft
Trevor Williams Studio head of Playground Games
It’s hard to overstate Dan’s impact over the past 27 years. From shipping Project Gotham Racing on the original XBOX in 2001 to leading the creation of Forza, founding Turn 10 Studios and appearing so many times on our E3 stage, usually making a dramatic entrance with a supercar in tow—and so much more—we owe tremendous thanks and gratitude to Dan. On behalf of both teams, I would like to thank Dan for his leadership, his support, and his partnership. I wish him well for whatever comes next.
Jody Macgregor Weekend/AU Editor
The Verge reports that Dan Greenawalt, studio head of Forza Motorsport developer Turn 10, is planning to retire after nearly 27 years, quoting an internal memo from Trevor Williams of Playground Games. “Dan Greenawalt has decided that this is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft,” Williams is reported to have said, clarifying that Greenawalt will stay on temporarily as an adviser during a changeover period.
Microsoft announced in September that it plans to merge Turn 10 and Playground, the two Forza studios, into one entity as part of the same restructure that will merge Obsidian into Bethesda and hand Halo over to Activision. Oh, and that restructure will also see another 268 employees being laid off.
Turn 10 had already been turned into a support studio for Playground’s Forza Horizon following the 2023 reboot of Forza Motorsport, with former developer Fred Russell saying last year that the original Motorsport series died in a prior round of cuts at Microsoft.
