Former Xbox boss: "I did encourage the console wars"

But he also thinks they were good for the industry and thinks the business has lost a healthy "feistiness" without it.

There have been a few popular heads of Microsoft's Xbox division, from Ed Fries to Phil Spencer, but the question is whether anyone has been more beloved than former Sega of America boss Peter Moore.

He took over as president in 2003 after it became apparent that Xbox had failed to become a serious challenger to PlayStation 2, and brought with him what can best be described as a rock-star Sega attitude. One of the first things he did was to pull the plug and bet on the Xbox 360 instead. He also broadened Microsoft's range of games (including a heavy focus on Japanese role-playing games) and ensured that the console became a natural home for all the best versions of third-party titles.

He left Microsoft in 2007, but his four years are often regarded as Xbox's best (shortly afterwards, Microsoft largely dropped the Japanese support and focused on Kinect and a few franchises instead). The Xbox 360 actually turns 20 this year, and Danny Peña's Podcast wanted to celebrate that and invited Moore for an interesting interview.

As usual, he's not afraid to speak his mind and admits, among other things, that he encouraged the so-called console war between PlayStation and Xbox when asked about it:

"We were young enough to have fun and do all the daft stuff that we did, and and all the stunts. I think that you know the console Wars, that that you're kind of alluding to, were healthy were healthy for the industry. Look I've said it before, we just certainly... I did encourage the battle because I think gamers loved to see Xbox versus PlayStation."

With this in mind, it's perhaps not surprising that Moore finds the games industry today a little duller when everyone is so polite to each other and games are released across the board. When the subject drifts to Microsoft's acquisitions of game companies, he says:

"This is not the old days of the console wars. Punching each other and trying to steal customers and and trying to get market share and build your attach rate, this is this is bigger than that in an economic sense. Has it lost a little bit of the the feistiness that the industry I think fed upon and grew upon? I think so yeah."

What do you think about it yourself? Was there a charm when fans fought over which format was best, exclusives were fiercely pursued, and game companies weren't afraid to take a swipe at others?

The British businessman Peter Moore led Xbox during four very successful years.