Officials from Microsoft have announced that the company will be establishing a new European office of Microsoft Game Studios (MGS), to be based in Reading in the UK.


The new arm is aimed at focusing “on continuing and growing the success of MGS-published content in Europe and in building ever-deeper relationships with European development talent". The new office will be headed by Phil Spencer, currently general manager at MGS.


Spencer will report to MGS corporate vice president Shane Kim, while also continuing his role of running the MGS publishing business and working with other studios around the world. He will be joined in Europe by Shannon Loftis as director of European production and Todd Stevens as director of business management.


“Europe is obviously very important to our platform efforts and an area where have a strong history of working with some of the best game industry talent,” said Spencer.


“We already have an established presence in the region with some of the world’s best development talent like Lionhead and Rare, and great publishing partners like Bizarre Creations, Real Time Worlds and Remedy," he continued.


“I’m very excited about what we’ve accomplished in Europe and I look forward to continuing and strengthening that success by building deeper relationships with the development community here,” added Spencer.


As indicated by Spencer, almost all of Microsoft’s major first and second party developers in Europe are based in the UK, explaining the Reading location – which is both close to London and to the now Microsoft owned Lionhead Studio.