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GRTV News - A former Xbox boss comments on how he encouraged the console wars
Peter Moore thinks they were nothing but good for the competitive nature of the gaming industry.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News, it's the final one of the week from me and we're going to be talking a little bit on today's one about the console wars. They've been effectively over for a long time now, people will say that console wars still exist but they are far less, they're far less sort of embedded into the gaming industry as they were in the 2000s and early 2010s really as well. They kind of ended I would say midway through the 2010s when Xbox really just lost so much ground to PlayStation during the Xbox One era and since then it's like Xbox has decided there's no point fighting that war, we're going to do something else and that's why they've gone down this route of game pass and multi-platform and all these different things. But when the console wars were alive, you could argue that video games was in one of the best places it's ever been."
"The software that we got, the titles and the sequels and franchises, it was all really really exciting and I think that's something that has been lacking and it seems that Peter Moore, the ex Xbox boss and also an ex Sega boss seems to agree with that. So let's dive in and see what he says. So yeah, former Xbox boss, I did encourage the console wars but he also thinks that they were good for the industry and thinks the business has lost a healthy feistiness without it. So 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 be best described as a rockstar 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 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 Pena'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. So we were young enough to have fun and do all the daft stuff that we did and all the stunts. I think you know the console wars that you're kind of alluding to were healthy, were healthy for the industry. Look I've said it before we were just, we just certainly, I did encourage the battle because I think gamers love 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 trying to get market share and build your attach rate. This is, this is bigger than in an economic sense. Has it lost a little bit of 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 fairly pushed, fiercely pushed and game companies weren't afraid to take a swipe at others. I think Peter Moore is pretty much bang on with that to be honest. All three of the major console providers these days are not competing with one another in a traditional sense. Xbox is now utilising PlayStation as a platform to release its titles on. Yes Xbox might get a degree of exclusivity but these titles as has been proven now and continues to be proven, they will eventually come to PlayStation."
"So Xbox is not really in a console war anymore. PlayStation exists on its own and does its own thing but that's because of the market share of home consoles that it occupies and Nintendo has always been on the sidelines doing Nintendo things. So there's not really any war between these major console providers anymore and I think because of that it's the same case with the technology industry. When these technology companies don't push each other and you don't see all these quirky new products coming out and everyone, as is the case today, you see these major technological companies just release marginal updated devices and sell them as something brand new and it feels stale. And I think that's the place where we're kind of at with the video game industry as well a little bit. It's so heavily invested on software these days because the hardware is near the same. It runs in different ways, has different operating systems and UIs and all these different things, little quirky things inside the console and how it's set up but at the same time they do the exact same thing. And in a way you can sort of draw a parallel to the way that certain sports like Formula One is managed in that there are ten cars on the grid that are all different but they're all very similar. And I think that's basically the place that we're at with video games as well. When you take away that competition, it kills the drive, the push to be better than the other ones. So I think the console wars were healthy. The one issue that the console wars had was that it was used as a platform for communities to battle one another, which was never what it was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about these two technological titans. Again, as Peter Moore says, swiping and taking punches at one another. But that's not there anymore. Would it be nice to see it back? Probably, but it never will now I don't think. And even if it did, Xbox have lost so much ground to PlayStation in regards to hardware and their position in the global market that I don't think there'd be much of a war at all really. It'd be more like guerrilla warfare if anything."
"Xbox trying to launch more sneaky attacks at PlayStation. Maybe that's what they're doing right now with the cross-platform thing. Maybe it's a new attempt to take back some ground.
Who knows? But yeah, that's all the time I have on today's episode of GRT News, but I will be back now on Monday for the next one. So I hope you enjoy the rest of your Friday. Enjoy your weekend. I'll see you on the other side. Take care, everyone."
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