lordzeppelin

Maybe I'm a total geek, but I'm finding this interview to be pretty compelling...The Guardian (UK Paper) has a games blog, and they are publishing a Peter Moore interview, which discusses the demise of the Dreamcast, Sega's weaknesses, the birth of the XBOX360, and more (or Moore, if you like puns).

Part One
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ews.microsoft1

Part Two
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...tion.microsoft

I was a die-hard Sega fan, even though I owned all the consoles. I absolutely loved the Dreamcast, still play it, and wish Sega would really recapture some of their glory as a developer. It's interesting to read about Moore's thoughts and problems with Sega's Japanese Executives, and of course the reality is that Sega has never really recovered.

I know Moore gets a bad rep sometimes, and EA has been a bumbling moron of a company in some senses, but somehow, I think EA in Moore's hands is going in the right direction.

fumanstan

EA's been pretty solid for the last year or more, and all the recent developments and deals with developers have looked real good for them, such as partnerships with Valve or iD Software. Just the Take-Two stuff was kind of a pain. Activision is quickly becoming the new big publisher to hate instead.

Good read though, it's always interesting to see these inside stories and interviews.

Raul3

It was really interesting.

Kinda funny, now that he's in EA, that he still talks bad about Sony.

lordzeppelin

I think his main problem with Sony is their recent history of turning a blind eye to several aspects of the business on a global level. They have the attitude of "we're sony, we're the top dog" and really don't care what anyone else wants or does. Which is why the 360 is excelling in the west. Sony is still trying to do things the way they did in 99-00, and the games market is completely different. In a sense, Sony repeated the mistakes that Sega made with the Saturn Dev Kit being near impossible to work with, where the Sony PSX was easier to program for. Now the tables have turned, and the PS3 is difficult to develop for and the 360 is much easier. He sees a lot of the hubris of Sega of Japan, circa late 90's, in Sony right now.

Plus, the guy is a marketing mind, and he still has to be laughing at the way the PS3 launch and marketing was handled on a global scale. The horrendous US advertising alone had to have cost a few dozen people their jobs.

I really find the transition from the 16-bit era to 32-bit VERY interesting, as I managed a video game store at the time...Sega and Nintendo had done equally well, and both of them shot themselves in the foot while Sony crept in and stole it all away. SegaCD and the 32X showed that they had no clue what to do, Nintendo made the biggest boneheaded decision of the era in going with carts for the 64, and Sony came in with some solid 3rd party devs and made them both pay. Don't even get me started on the Saturn...I loved it and still do, but what a disaster on so many levels.

lordzeppelin

Parts Four and Five...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...iews.microsoft
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ws.playstation

The last 2 entries kinda...eh. The first two were good. I'd really have liked to hear more details about Sega's demise...