A career opening available on Microsoft's website suggests that the company is looking to add official support for Xbox Live game mods.
The 'Senior Program Manager' would drive a program to shape and bring to fruition a new set of tools for game developers to easily integrate modding into their games, with the ultimate goal to empower community creativity.
Do you want to work with a group of passionate, fun people on unleashing game developers and community creativity? Xbox Live is the leading gamer network spanning console, PC and mobile games and is central to Microsoft’s gaming strategy; its services power the breadth of social gaming experiences with Xbox Live clubs, achievements, leaderboards, community hubs, game hubs, game activity feed, and much more. Xbox Live has an exemplary future as it expands to serve many more scenarios where consumers, and creators interact with each other.
Team Xbox is looking for you to drive support on Xbox Live for game mods. You will have a unique opportunity to shape and bring to market a new set of services, tools and experiences allowing game developers to easily integrate mods into their games, communities of passionate fans to create and share awesome and engaging content for the games they love, while keeping everyone on the network safe from abusive content.
Obviously, Microsoft hasn't announced any such program for Xbox Live game mods yet. However, the job description is crystal clear in what it entails. This could be big news first and foremost for Windows Store and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), as one of its weaknesses is widely recognized to be the virtual lack of mod support.
It would be even better if this program also launched on Xbox One. So far consoles have had only very limited mod support, such as the one delivered by Bethesda with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4. We'll keep you updated whenever Microsoft makes a proper announcement.
