Chris Kohler
Culture

Top 10: Peter Moore's Most Shocking Xbox Revelations

What was going through the heads of executives during the most controversial moments of the Xbox 360’s and Sega Dreamcast’s lifecycles? Dreamcast was the final console in a string of failures from Sega: Even though it was a much better platform than the company’s previous efforts and had a solid fan base, a cash-strapped Sega […]

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What was going through the heads of executives during the most controversial moments of the Xbox 360's and Sega Dreamcast's lifecycles?

Dreamcast was the final console in a string of failures from Sega: Even though it was a much better platform than the company's previous efforts and had a solid fan base, a cash-strapped Sega took the drastic step of discontinuing it less than two years after launch. Xbox 360 was supposed to win the console war for Microsoft, but the one-two punch of massive hardware issues and Wii ended that dream.

While we might never know the full stories behind these troubled times, the outspoken Peter Moore was at the center of both businesses. Last year, Moore moved on from Redmond to assume the presidency of Electronic Arts' sports brand. Last week, he gave an almost unbelievably extensive interview to The Guardian, which ran the Q&A in five parts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Each installment contained at least one bombshell, as Moore gave a rare insider's look into situations like the killing of the Dreamcast (he says he made the call, not the Japanese) and the Xbox 360's red-ring-of-death meltdown. There's a great deal of gold buried in the interview -- here's our picks for the Top 10 most shocking, revelatory, or just plain interesting comments.

10. On opposition to videogames within Microsoft

There was a vocal minority that disagreed with videogames as a cultural phenomenon –- the content we were doing –- we did M rated, we did allow (Grand Theft Auto) to be published on the platform ... From an overall cultural point of view there were people who felt we shouldn't do this, but the great majority were proud of it ... they love the fact that they can take something home to their kids and say, this is what we do.

9. On the announcement of Wii

I was in Tokyo when (Nintendo president Satoru Iwata) brought the controller out and said,
"here it is!" and we were all going, "what the hell is that?". I was with Robbie and I remember going "I don't know... it's different". But we knew that (Nintendo was) too good a company to lose twice in a row.

8. On why the little guy will always fan the flames of console wars

I loved the console wars and still do even though I'm no longer in the console business.... I think the consumer loves it, it adds publicity and it adds fire around the industry. And in those days we needed to because we didn't have the money ...

7. On Microsoft's initial struggles with the games business

I was the only third-party who'd go on stage with Microsoft at E3 -- at that time people were saying Microsoft couldn't get it done, but I believed they could, because I believed in online. I always thought that online was going to be the key.

6. Why America was the key battleground for Dreamcast

[T]he North American launch was the last best chance –- Europe was going to be launching but there wasn't enough there to salvage what was going to be a tough situation with the PS2 looming 12 months out.... The US was the last best chance of getting the Dreamcast up and running.

__5. On Sony's insane PR blitz prior to PS2's (and PS3's) launch
__

I was angry with Sony at the time, but in their shoes I probably would have done the same thing ... promised the consumer something they probably believed they were going to deliver, but they never did.... Sony came up with that Killzone video –- and they still haven't shipped the game! Have you seen the video?! The game will never be the video! But what they did again was they placed doubt.

4. On Microsoft's failure to capture the casual market

With Xbox Live Arcade we always believed it would bring in a more casual user, but basically XBLA is casual content for hardcore users. Clearly we needed to broaden our consumer base ... but we were still perceived as Halo Box –- and in some senses we were our own worst enemy, in that we had this incredible content, but it continued to define who the consumer was - then what did we do? We backed it up with chainsaws in* Gears of War*!

3. On killing the Dreamcast

Dreamcast was on fire –- we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said ... we had to make N hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift N millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business. So on January 31 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware –- somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese. I had to fire a lot of people, it was not a pleasant day.

2. On killing the Xbox

The hard drive in every Xbox killed us; we were still selling it at $199 and the hard drive was like $70. That's why we prematurely left the original Xbox.... It was killing us, and there was no way to bring the price down. So in the end ... we just needed to slow this thing down and just not sell any more, and move to the 360 as quickly as we possibly could.

1. On Microsoft's failure to capture the casual market, part II: Rare

(U)nfortunately I think the industry had (passed) (Perfect Dark developer) Rare by –- it's a strong statement but what they were good at, new consumers didn't care about anymore, and it was tough because they were trying very hard ... Great people. But their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market.

Epilogue: It seems that Moore and EA were somewhat blindsided by the fact that The Guardian ran the entire interview transcript -- the interview was for a story that ran in Esquire. Moore asked the writer to run a "final word" on his blog in which Moore smooths over some of the rougher edges -- praising Rare's "flair and creativity," for example.

Photo: Chris Kohler/Wired.com

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