A new interview with the Microsoft exec in charge during the Xbox 360 era reveals a very different attitude to console rivals.
Just yesterday, current Xbox boss Phil Spencer talked about how his most anticipated game is a PlayStation exclusive, but you wouldn’t have heard that from anyone at Microsoft during the Xbox 360 era.
Microsoft’s most successful console to date was overseen by former Sega America boss Peter Moore, who went on to become an exec at EA and then CEO of Liverpool american football Club. He didn’t pretend to be a gamer and admitted in a new interview that he actively encouraged the rivalry with PlayStation.
“We’ve encouraged the console wars, not to create division, but to challenge each other,” Moore said. “When I say each other, I mean Microsoft and Sony. If Microsoft hadn’t held the course after the Xbox, after the Red Ring of Death, gaming would be a worse place for that, you wouldn’t have the competition you have now.”
While Peter Moore had a very different management style to Phil Spencer, there’s no denying that it worked and while the Xbox Series X/S may eventually surpass the Xbox 360, it’s currently the only time Microsoft has had a major advantage over Sony. .
PlayStation 3 sales eventually overshadowed it, as Xbox’s popularity was largely limited to the US and UK, but especially early in the generation, before Microsoft started pushing Kinect, Xbox was dominant. Even now, that era is usually referred to as the Xbox 360 generation — rather than PlayStation 3.
Aside from showing fake tattoos from new Xbox exclusives, Moore is best known for overseeing the Red Ring of Death debacle, where early Xbox 360 consoles had a defect rate of over 25%.
The only solution was to try and keep repairing them (often the same console multiple times), a process that ended up costing Microsoft more than $1 billion.
While the Front Office Sports interview was mostly about his time at Liverpool, Moore admitted, “If we didn’t solve Red Rings of Death the way we did, I know damn well there wouldn’t be an Xbox today.”
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