Andy Lees apparently isn’t the only guy switching jobs at Microsoft this week. CNET is reporting that Don Coyner, Microsoft’s General Manager of Design and Planning, will be leaving his position as head of the Xbox design and experience group. Instead, that job will go to Emma Williams, the General Manager of Xbox Experiences, whose most recent project was last week's Xbox Live revamp. The group she will be heading is a combined hardware / user experience team charged with providing a complete design vision for the platform. The company regularly employs third party firms to tackle the hardware design of its Xbox products, though, partnering with Astro Studios for the Xbox 360 design and MINIMAL for the Kinect and Xbox 360 S.
After working at Nintendo for seven years as a marketing manager, Coyner joined Microsoft in 1995 and the Xbox team in 1999. He was a major proponent of a unified design for the Xbox interface, something we're all thankful for. CNET's sources say Coyner isn’t planning to leave the company, although it’s not clear what his next position will be or why he's leaving the job.