Microsoft gains a seat on British Film and TV Academy’s VR advisory board

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has shared today the list of members of its newly-formed Virtual Reality Advisory Group and 343 Industries’ studio head Dan Ayoub will be one of them (via Gamasutra). The exec is joined by 24 other VR experts from both the technology and creative industries including Sony Interactive Entertainment America President Shawn Layden, Alienware co-founder Frank Azor and Oculus Creative Producer Yelena Rachitsky. You can get more details about all the members of the Advisory Group on the BAFTA website.

The Virtual Reality Advisory Group will be based in Los Angeles and “explore and help articulate the impact that VR will have on the current landscape of the film, television and games industries”. AMD Vice President and chair of the VR Advisory Group Roy Taylor explained:

Recognising that VR is evoking a great deal of debate throughout not only the games industry but the film and television industries too, BAFTA is keen to create a forum which can bring a focus to this important debate. We are honoured that such a prestigious group of colleagues have agreed to join us in this important conversation.

The choice of 343 Industries’ Dan Ayoub is interesting considering that Microsoft’s VR efforts today are probably more associated with other Microsoft execs involved with the development of the HoloLens mixed-reality headset such as Alex Kipman or Kudo Tsunoda. Could the game studio head have much more VR expertise than we thought, or could even the developer of the Halo video game series be already experimenting with VR? We probably won’t know for a while, but in the meantime BAFTA shared that the VR Advisory Group should deliver its recommendations within the next twelve months.