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XBox (Games)

An Original Xbox Designer Talks 360 71

Posted by Zonk from the new-and-improved dept.
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."
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An Original Xbox Designer Talks 360 More

An Original Xbox Designer Talks 360

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  • He must be happy with this design too (Score:5, Funny)

    by muyuubyou ( 621373 ) * on Thursday August 11, 2005 @04:47AM (#13292755)
    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.
  • Look at every article in games.slashdot With the exception of two by timothy, every article is posted by Zonk This may be the worst games.slashdot article day ever...

  • well this is new (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <.fidelcatsro. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday August 11, 2005 @05:00AM (#13292798) Journal
    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

    • "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?
      • Maybe not , But they seem to Be quite experienced at playing Monopoly
      • Microsoft Flight Simulator does.

        In fact, at one time the definition of "100% IBM-PC Compatible" was that it would run Flight Simulator.

      • solitaire was written by an unpaid intern working for MS. so that one is out. he did it himself; didnt have any staff, no development schedule, etc etc etc... that doesnt count.

        does anyone realize that this guy is an evangelist for microsoft? a paid employee. his only job [which hes recieving a hefty six figures at least for...] is to develop fanboys. say whatever is necessary to get people to love the xbox. you cant take the guy all too seriously.

    • Re:well this is new (Score:3, Insightful)

      by defkkon ( 712076 )
      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 num

      • i didnt read the article similarly. i found that he avoided some of the more difficult questions. he is being smart, and i cant fault him for that. thats what he is supposed to do.

        all im saying is that like anyone doing pr for either company, he took a few jabs at sony too. they werent overt, but they were jabs nonetheless. and he danced around in his statements. "hey, why dont you bash sony over the same thing you bash us for...?", "we have been in the game longer than sony", "those pictures were okay, but
    • I would DEFINITELY not say the Dreamcast is quieter than the Xbox... do you even have an xbox?
      • I would DEFINITELY not say the Dreamcast is quieter than the Xbox... do you even have an xbox?

        I have three Dreamcasts and one Xbox, and the Xbox is by far the loudest console of any that I own. The Dreamcast is quiet by today's standards.

        There may be some variation between Xboxes because it's pretty clear that the hard drive and DVD drive are the two main culprits in my machine. They may have quieted those down in later production runs (I have a launch system).

        But I actually have to have a separate fan o
    • Don't they say that the definition of stupidity is to do the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome?

      Well, it looks like he tried something new. Apparently small, attractive, inexpensive hardware doesn't sell... so he went with the opposite :p

      I see nothing wrong with that approach.

  • Decoder Ring (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ""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 i
    • Erm... You think with Kutaragi running around like a madman shouting things like "It's perfect! Nobody would dare criticize it!" and "You'll want to work yourself to death to save up and buy one!" and "It's not a game machine, it's the home entertainment supercomputer!" and "120GB of space isn't enough for gamers!" and "It'll age your content in an online digital vault like fine wine so it'll turn into HD!", that the Xbox 360 will be more of a fiasco then the PS3?

      Please, pray tell, how so?
    • Interesting..they did make Nintendo 3rd place and no one could've caught up to Sony because of the huge head start,installed base and superior marketing. I'm curious, what dev house do you work for?
    • Really...you're a dev are you....what games have you helped make?

      I'll believe these posts when someone has the balls to admit what game they made with proof to back up their claim.
    • Do not mod parent up. He is a Sony astroturfer. He posts the same reworded BS on *every* *single* story remotely related to the XBox. He is not a developer because no developer could possibly spend so much time monitoring Slashdot and composing posts while still staying employed.

      End of transmission.

  • Say that again? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Thursday August 11, 2005 @05:12AM (#13292842)
    globally-by-regionally

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

  • Good to see (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @05:58AM (#13292982) Homepage Journal
    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.
    • As over-stated as this is, that entirely depends on the software available at launch. It doesn't matter how great the console is, if they can't get 3rd party support from the beginning, they won't have a leg to stand on.

      It's a similar problem to what happened to the 'cube and the original XBox. Not enough opening day software caused diminished sales. I worked opening night for the XBox release, and it wasn't that they didn't have a good system, and it wasn't that they didn't advertise- there weren't enou
      • Remember that Sony owned the rights to everything they used in their previous consoles. Microsoft, on the other hand, used chips from Nvidia that they aren't going to be using in the 360, and they can't just toss in there to make things compatible easily.

        So what are they doing? Writing an emulator. They are doing MORE work to get backward compatibility than Sony has to do - and they're doing it. I just played Halo 2 on a 360 yesterday. 100% emulated, not a single speed issue anywhere. It's really a te
        • I'm more concerned with non-MS titles. Halo 2 was not that impressive. In fact, I play the original much more than I ever touch Halo 2. Neither game is why I bought an XBox, and if my 3rd party games don't work correctly, no 360 for me.
    • Wait, what? Like some say the XBox was? It was beaten, badly AND it lost Microsoft the GDP of several african countries. The PS2 outsold it by a factor of FOUR. It outsold the Gamecube only by a slim margin. It was such a joke in Japan a good week for it was breaking 3-digit sales.

  • Designer? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MadMoses ( 151207 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @06:03AM (#13292995) Homepage
    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.
    • Was the email response something like this?

      From:autoreply@sega.com
      To:madmoses@somewhere.com

      RE: Sega is the suxxor!!!

      Dear Sir or Madam,

      Please pissoff and stop wasting our executives valuable time with your meaningless emails!

      Yours truly,
      The office of Peter Moore
      • Nope, not at all. It was a personal reply (on topic) to my email, "signed" with Peter Moore, and it also had a reasonable personal email address of Mr. Moore (not the one I made up for contacting him). I doubt that someone else at Sega would sign an email with the name of the CEO (in that case I would expect something like in your example). Of course, it was only two or three sentences long, but that was more than I expected, considering that I was wasting his time, like you wrote. That's why I'm giving him
        • Don't worry, was just joking :)

          And for the record im no fan boy either... I have Dreamcast, Xbox and PS2. Would have a gamecube too, but im a little to image consious to have the fisherprice looking contraption in my entertainment system.
    • is that the same peter moore who sank sega into the depths of financial despair?

  • from scratch? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Thursday August 11, 2005 @08:41AM (#13293595)
    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...
  • Next on Slashdot: The Guy Who Designed the Xbox Controller

    "Microsoft is all about innovation, so we made the memory card first and then built the controller around it..."
    "...wanted to make the logo in the middle a button to launch Word..."

    Subscribe now!
    • Then after that...

      Slashdot Readers Make Up Microsoft Insults

      Read comments made by clueless readers, most who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, as they make up random reasons to insult Microsoft to be part of the "cool Slashdot crowd".
  • "Creating something and then inviting everyone to come and play with it and come and make money on this stuff we have." He left out the final part: "Creating something and then inviting everyone to come and play with it and come and make money on this stuff we have. That's when we steal everything that everyone else made, claim it as our own, and lock out everyone. That's how our monopoly works."
  • Gotta love all the fan boys coming out to defend and attack consoles that aren't out yet. I especially like the ones that pretend they are developers. I'll be buying a 360 for sure since it's coming out in a few months. Revolution or PS3, one or the other depending what games are out for them that I want to play.
    • Gotta love all the fan boys coming out to defend and attack consoles that aren't out yet. I especially like the ones that pretend they are developers.

      What makes you think they aren't?

      I don't anymore, but I used to work for one of the largest publishers in the United States, in the marketing department. I'd be on here posting all the time from work. I never said where I worked (and I still won't publicly; no point), I rarely even said what field I was in unless it was absolutely necessary to make a point,
      • That's the best part of Slashdot! The people here are so intelligent that they know more about every subject than the people who actually create/work with/develop those items for a living.

        For example, imagine a security hole is found in your product. Don't worry, the 13-year old slashdotter who's entire coding experience in writing "hello world" in VB will explain why the entire staff of the company whose product it was in has no clue about security.

        But there are plenty of trolls out there who know they h

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