Microsoft's Peter Moore: On Being the Underdog

'A working class hero is something to be'

Posted 16 May 2007 by Staff

Peter Moore: Sony is arrogant?

Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division (phew!), good old Peter Moore has "always enjoyed being that feisty second-place guy".

You may also not be aware that Pete's from a working-class Liverpudlian family that used to own a pub. He also used to work for the sports brand Reebok, before moving over to Sega in the 1990s, and joining Microsoft in January 2003.

Now you do know this, you have some context to the answers he gave Newsweek editor N’Gai Croal in a recent interview for the magazine.

“I've always enjoyed being that feisty second-place guy that's clawing hard to get respect in the marketplace, build market share and get the credibility from a business point of view that's needed. When we finally become the market leader, you ask yourself, 'Okay, how do you keep the adrenaline flowing every day?'"

Fairly straightforwardly, Peter: you look over your shoulder and see the competition bearing down on you.

Moore continues with his self-analysis and takes an opportunity to label Sony as arrogant.

"And I often wonder whether that has been in the last six to nine months part of Sony's problem, where you get the this concept of the arrogance of the incumbent: you don't know failure and you don't know struggle, because all you've known is success. As a result, you have a different bearing on the way you do business every day, because it comes from a platform of being number one and successful, instead of a platform of being number two and striving for success.”

Which begs the question, what will happen if and when Microsoft becomes top dog in the home console market?

The rest of the first part of N’Gai Croal’s wonderful interview with Peter can be read on Newsweek’s website.

^{Source: Newsweek}