An Original Xbox Designer Talks 360

Peter Moore talks to the folks over at Spong.com about what it was like to make the original Xbox, and how those lessons now translate into work on the 360. From the article: "We've built from scratch a brand, I think we've built credibility in the marketplace and I think we've built our ecosystem, be it our relationship with publishers, with retail. We have a hugely positive relationship with developers, something we are extremely proud of here. The DNA of Microsoft is building platforms. Creating something and then inviting everyone to come and play with it and come and make money on this stuff we have. Xbox is no different. You hear us talk a lot about it as a platform and it's this combo of hardware, software and services that all come together to create this platform."

Comments

He must be happy with this design too

[muyuubyou]

Wow just check out those pics... either the guy is tiny or the thing is huge!

I will need a bigger cabinet to hide this other one.

Re:He must be happy with this design too

[Neon Spiral Injector]

They've done everything they could to make the 360 look smaller: make it a ligther color, make the side of the box convex. But when it comes down to it, the overall dimensions are almost the same as the original Xbox. So yeah, it's huge.

well this is new

[FidelCatsro]

A person speaking on behalf of Microsoft talking in circles ,Now there is something unusual *cough*

Anyway..

                  Reading through the interview , He does take great pains to rubbish Sony .

"We've been making games for two decades as a company and that's something people often forget. We're far more experienced at making games than Sony ever was"

Sony also did have a good amount of experience acquired from their partnership with Nintendo
(The SNES's dropped CD add on) Which allowed Sony to pick up quite a bit of knowledge and eventually resulted in the Playstation .They also acquired a lot of very talented people for the development of their consoles .Exactly what MS did when they started to muscle into the console market

That aside , the Dreamcast was a great console(though it did have a few problems ) . It was reasonably compact , quite quiet and well designed. The man worked on it .. so my main question would be , What exactly happened with the design of the original Xbox. The Xbox is large , noisy , heavy and (this is just my opinion) not terribly attractive from a design stand point .It was one of the largest consoles to date.
I see they are taking pains (at least at face value , I have no idea how noisy the box will be) to correct the issues of the origional design

Re:well this is new

[MilenCent]

"We've been making games for two decades as a company and that's something people often forget. We're far more experienced at making games than Sony ever was"

Wow. Does Solitaire even count?

Re:well this is new

[FidelCatsro]

Maybe not , But they seem to Be quite experienced at playing Monopoly

Re:well this is new

[defkkon]

A person speaking on behalf of Microsoft talking in circles ,Now there is something unusual *cough*

I know that the usual thing to do on /. is to immediately start trashing Microsoft. But, c'mon. The guy is trying to drum up good PR for the Xbox and Xbox 360. I read the entire article, and he's not talking in circles - he's giving a nice spin on the entire Xbox experience. I actually found the interview interesting. He gave some solid answers and opinions. Even though he doesn't give any dates or numbers (we all know damned well that none of the companies would do that this early) but he doesn't ignore the questions either.

Besides, as if Ken Kutaragi is the most believable, reliable, reality-based person on the planet. He is one of the most aggressive hype-mongers I've witnessed. I think he's great for Sony, but don't start trashing Peter Moore just because he's from Microsoft.

Say that again?

[Seumas]

globally-by-regionally

What the fuck does that mean?! Is that like "way over right here"?

Good to see

[Sv-Manowar]

As much as people dislike Microsoft, they have a good thing with the Xbox. Although the first one lost out on market share to the PS2 in the beginning, people have now realised that the Xbox can handle a lot more graphically and may (arguably) be the better console out of the two.

If they can get the xbox360 out there fast enough before the ps3 is launched, and show people that it is a great console, they will have no worries about it being beaten like some say the xbox was.

Designer?

[MadMoses]

Is this the same Peter Moore that was once president of Sega before he was hired by Microsoft? If yes, I don't think that he counts as a "designer" of the XBox, because IIRC, at the time he switched companies, the XBox was already out some time.

Slightly OT, from personal experience, Peter Moore is a very nice man (despite working at MS ;) - I once sent an email to peter dot moore at sega dot com (which I just made up), when he was still president of Sega, and somehow the email reached him and he took the time to write a friendly response. That's what I call dedicated customer service.

from scratch?

[justforaday]

We've built from scratch a brand...

Yes, it's amazing how you can build a brand from scratch when all you have to work with is an essentially unlimited marketing budget...