Giant Bomb Video Game News

J Allard is the gold standard for fascinatingly ridiculous corporate evangelism in the world of video games. His coffee-shop-cool image might've been blatantly manufactured, and while Reggie Fils-Aime and Peter Moore have certainly got chops, neither of them could get away with legally changing their first name to a single letter or wearing a sports jacket and a hoodie at the same time. Dude hasn't been publicly involved with Microsoft's games division for years now, but that doesn't stop my ears from perking up whenever I hear mention of his name, which inevitably leads to me secretly hoping he'll stroll out onto the stage during the next Microsoft E3 press conference to insane and thunderous applause.

This shameful process began anew this morning when Friend of Giant Bomb Rich Gallup gave me the heads-up that J Allard would be receiving an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Boston University, Allard's alma mater, alongside Michael Jordan adversary Larry Bird and Boom Blox executive producer Steven Spielberg. Can you imagine what could happen if all three of these honorees actually make it to the May 17th commencement ceremony? I would fully expect them to announce that Microsoft is publishing a one-on-one basketball game set during WWII at E3 next month. The only bummer? It would be exclusively for the Zune.