Xbox co-designer quits Microsoft
How many direct hits can the good ship Microsoft take?
In another savage blow for Microsoft, last night Seamus Blackley said he was to quit the company. Blackley was the man jointly responsible for the Xbox and oversaw the hardware development for the machine, both in-house and with the company's development partners.
This news is a PR disaster for Microsoft’s global Xbox push and will no doubt be seen as a vote of no confidence from within the tight company structure. Along with J Allard and Robbie Bach, Blackley is widely considered to be one of the Xbox founding fathers.
He has a reputation for shrewd, yet polite business, and was often dispatched by Microsoft to speak to development and publishing partners. His demeanour saw him responsible for courting potentially difficult Japanese game companies and in fact, it was Blackley who secured the deal with Tecmo to bring Dead or Alive 3 to Xbox, the platform’s best-selling game in Japan.
Blackley was also put in charge of securing support from SquareSoft. The last time he made the headlines was back in January when he confirmed that talks with the Final Fantasy giant were underway. “These big companies are very important and of course we are talking to them,” he said two months ago, in relation to Square.
City analysts have been quick to brand Blackley’s departure as a fresh sign of the Xbox exhibiting symptoms of ‘sinking ship syndrome’. "I think that the guy is responsible for the positioning of the product, and I think Microsoft positioned the product wrong when they launched," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "It's an over-engineered product."
The fact that this news comes just days after Microsoft crumbled under pressure from the European market and announced a price-cut for the region is ominous to say the least. It is believed that the hack in sales projections for the Xbox announced this week made Blackley’s position untenable.
The official line from a somewhat flustered Microsoft today is as follows: “Seamus has left the company to pursue other opportunities and we wish him all the best for the future.”
We can confirm that Blackley’s departure from an operational role within Microsoft is effective immediately.
More as it breaks.
This news is a PR disaster for Microsoft’s global Xbox push and will no doubt be seen as a vote of no confidence from within the tight company structure. Along with J Allard and Robbie Bach, Blackley is widely considered to be one of the Xbox founding fathers.
He has a reputation for shrewd, yet polite business, and was often dispatched by Microsoft to speak to development and publishing partners. His demeanour saw him responsible for courting potentially difficult Japanese game companies and in fact, it was Blackley who secured the deal with Tecmo to bring Dead or Alive 3 to Xbox, the platform’s best-selling game in Japan.
Blackley was also put in charge of securing support from SquareSoft. The last time he made the headlines was back in January when he confirmed that talks with the Final Fantasy giant were underway. “These big companies are very important and of course we are talking to them,” he said two months ago, in relation to Square.
City analysts have been quick to brand Blackley’s departure as a fresh sign of the Xbox exhibiting symptoms of ‘sinking ship syndrome’. "I think that the guy is responsible for the positioning of the product, and I think Microsoft positioned the product wrong when they launched," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "It's an over-engineered product."
The fact that this news comes just days after Microsoft crumbled under pressure from the European market and announced a price-cut for the region is ominous to say the least. It is believed that the hack in sales projections for the Xbox announced this week made Blackley’s position untenable.
The official line from a somewhat flustered Microsoft today is as follows: “Seamus has left the company to pursue other opportunities and we wish him all the best for the future.”
We can confirm that Blackley’s departure from an operational role within Microsoft is effective immediately.
More as it breaks.
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