The man behind Xbox Live is to hold a master class in Glasgow next month.

Boyd Multerer, the man responsible for Xbox Live, the gaming and entertainment service now used by more than 46 million people worldwide, will be at Glasgow Caledonian University on May 12 between 6pm to 7.30pm

The former Microsoft man was also behind XNA programming - which allowed independent designers to develop games for the Xbox 360 console.

More recently, Boyd founded and led the team that worked on the Xbox One operating system, which went on to win a Technical Emmy and a Microsoft Technical Achievement Award.

After almost 20 years at Microsoft, Boyd left in December 2014 and is now working on an as yet unannounced project.

He will visit GCU to talk to students and staff about lessons learned from Xbox and his predictions for the future of gaming. He will focus on the importance of anticipating changes in technology and culture, and forecasting how they will change in future years.

Boyd said: "Video-game consoles have grown from toys to the centrepiece of our living rooms. That doesn't mean it will always be the case. My work has focused on building what will be interesting in the future over what is interesting now.

"We must design products for the world that will exist when they ship, rather than for the world that was there when we started. This means predicting technical and cultural change. It means adjusting as new data comes in.

"At the master class, I'll share some stories of specific predictions I made and how they affected the design of the things I've worked on. Then I'll walk through some of the predictions I have for the next few years."

Lecturer David Farrell, of GCU's School of Engineering and Built Environment, said: "It is a real pleasure and honour for us to have Boyd visit the University. Few individuals have had as significant an impact on games and technology as Boyd. His work has consistently been at the cutting edge of what is possible and I'm really excited to hear how he anticipates the next wave of games, technology and culture."