When I look back on most consoles, I'm largely looking back at the games. The PS3 is LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear 4, as far as I'm concerned, and even the GameCube, that squat, characterful delight, is largely hidden behind Mario Sunshine, Wind-Waker and Animal Crossing. (Even just typing that: cor, what a time that was.)
At the tail end of 2024 the original PlayStation turned 30 years old. While the Xbox 360 is only hitting 20 and it's not an industry shaker to the degree the PS1 was, there's no doubt it earned its place as one of the most important consoles of all time. Xbox managed to challenge Sony in the traditional home console space the PlayStation had dominated with PS1 and PS2, and the console's brilliant line-up of games played a major role in that.
Yesterday, we published part one of our interview with former Xbox 360 boss Peter Moore, where he talked about the creation of Microsoft's beloved machine, the grand idea encompassing it, and how his team had to break from the stuffy office-worker image Microsoft had. "Guys with pocket protectors and thick glasses", as he described it. He also talked about "throwing punches" to provoke the Xbox vs. PlayStation console war.
Peter Moore is one executive who can probably claim to have done it all. Having recently fulfilled a lifelong dream of being CEO of Liverpool Football Club, this Liverpudlian businessman also spent decades working in video games, leading EA, helping Sega launch the Dreamcast and, of course, making a real contender of Microsoft's gaming business with the launch of Xbox 360. Whenever the Xbox 360 made a move, Moore was the person on stage announcing it, literally rolling up his sleeves to display Halo and Grand Theft Auto tattoos, taking the fight to Sony and PlayStation.
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