Former Microsoft gaming guru says cost of HD forced firm to abandon format early
In the third part of The Guardian’s recent interview with current EA Sports boss and former Sega and Microsoft gaming head Peter Moore, the charismatic figure has admitted that the price of the hard drive in the original Xbox was the main factor that forced the company to make an early move to Xbox 360.
Moore stated: “Not having a hard drive in every Xbox 360 was a hard decision, but we wanted to get price under control. The hard drive in every Xbox killed us; we we’re still selling it at $199 and the hard drive was like $70. That’s why we prematurely left the original Xbox, because the more we were selling – there was still great demand – it was killing us, and there was no way to bring the price down.
“So in the end we determined at around the 25 million unit mark that 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. And to this day people still believe we left the Xbox too early but it was purely for financial purposes.”
Elsewhere in the interview, in which Moore has previously admitted to being the individual responsible for finally dropped the axe on Sega’s struggling Dreamcast, he explains the mixed feelings at Microsoft concerning the firm’s entry into the console market:
“There were two very distinct camps. I'd say the great majority of people loved it. It was a great rallying cry, they were proud of the fact we were doing consoles – it was the first physical thing you could really get behind at Microsoft other than a mouse or a keyboard, and it was entertainment.
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“There was a vocal minority that disagreed with video games as a cultural phenomenon – the content we were doing. We did M rated, we did allow GTA to be published on the platform and I had no issues with that… and then the drain on the company's stock price, because we were a multi-billion dollar investment group and it had an impact on the stock price.”
Comments
Peter Moore
Who does Peter Moore work for these days? EA or Microsoft - or both? I'm terribly confused! LOL
Re: Peter Moore
It's there in the first para for you...
Re: Re: Peter Moore
Is this guy the only Hardware boss in the history of the industry to have 2 current generation consoles in the form of the dreamcast and original xbox console be pulled out of production before there time? Haven't Microsoft with the 360 suddenly transformed there fortunes since Peter Moore moved to EA Sports??
Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
He just doesn't like to be out of the news for too long does he? The more I hear of Peter Moore the less I like him, no doubt he is a hugely successful man but it seems he likes the sound of his own voice a little too much. I imagine he's sitting in his top floor office right now, rocking in his big leather office chair, trying to think of what other element of his past he can feed to the media. Yawn.
It seems that Peter Moore only works for Peter Moore..
Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
I've said it before and i'll say it again....Peter Moore is a Douche. He has to be the most capricious man in gaming history.
@4 I think you've really hit the nail on the head "Peter Moore only works for Peter Moore".
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
Peter Moore : Publicity Whore
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
Well, you're entitled to your opinions, but I've always found him a very interesting bloke with a fscinating record in the industry - the pieces in The Guardian have all been essential reading. I would have thought some appreication of his honesty and willingness to speak openly about the situations he's witnessed should be recieved more gratefully, no?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
My CV.
Yeah, I killed the Dreamcast. I thought the XBox was too expensive, killed it.
Dear EA. Please can I head your sports brand.
...Coming to an MCV near you ??
Peter Moore killed EA sports.
"Yeah, It was a tough day I had to fire a lot of people, I thought we needed to make hardware like Nintendo." "All that coding was just killing us." "We're moving out of Chertsey in Surrey we just had too many free beer Fridays and we're heading to a farm to knit skipping ropes from the feathers of recued Swans."
Look out for our Rebranded "EcoA" Sports accessories coming to a store near you.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
@Ben: I didn't say i didn't like him. He's just an unashamed self publicist. His candid comments are welcome though.
Re: Peter Moore
In regards to this particular story, as opposed to pure hatred of Peter Moore, does anyone else find it strange that they couldn't source a cheaper hard drive?
Either they could have bought the drives in enough bulk to bring the cost down, or if, because they were the only market for those size drives, increase the size of the hard drive to one which was cheaper!
Re: Re: Peter Moore
One of the reasons I bought an Xbox 1.0 was due to the hard disk and being able to rip music etc…
Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
The problem with hard drives is they do not get any cheaper. They get larger for the same price. At retail they may cut prices on older, smaller drives in order to get them off the shelves, but its not like a console manufacturer can go to their local Computer Stop to purchase a few million hard drives. You see this evidenced just as well in this generation of consoles (on both PS3 and 360) - lots of SKUs being introduced with larger hard drives at the same price as the previous SKU.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Peter Moore
Yes no4 Peter Moore must be the industry's biggest self-publicist! LOL
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