Matt Casamassina, an editor at gaming website IGN known for his knowledge and coverage of Nintendo, has announced on his blog that he’s left the media world to join Apple as their new global editorial games director for the iTunes App Store:

Anybody who has read my work through the years will know that I’ve long been a huge Nintendo fan, but if there is one company that could entice me away from covering Mario and Zelda it’s the one owned by Steve Jobs. Beginning early May, I will join Apple as global editorial games manager, App Store. In a nutshell, I will be leading the charge for games on the App Store, so whether you browse through iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the games content you see will be handpicked and organized by me and my team. I couldn’t be happier.

Given the massive and growing amount of games for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, and ongoing concerns about quality and discoverability, its nice to see Apple (who haven’t always taken gaming seriously) filling a position like this.

Is Casamassina leading the charge to better sort and display games inside the App Store enough to help? And what, if anything, does his background in Nintendo coverage tell us about the direction Apple wants to go?

[Mouth on Fire, thanks everyone who sent this in]

IGN’s Nintendo guru becomes Apple’s App Store global editorial games director is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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