Former Xbox VP talks building Microsoft's brand, distancing it from Windows, and "throwing punches" for Bill Gates — "this is how the console wars started"

Microsoft's gaming brand Xbox may be globally recognized as one of the largest in the industry today, but in the early 2000s, it was in its infancy, and going up against stiff competition like Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube.

Following the strong launch of the original Xbox console, Microsoft wanted to ensure the brand was very distinct from the rest of the company — both to make it more attractive to consumers, and to distance it from antitrust challenges the firm was facing at the time.

One of the big moves it made to build it was to hire Peter Moore, former president of Sega, who went on to become vice president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business wing. More recently discussed his time in the gaming industry and at the company in a new interview with The Game Business, talking about his role developing 2005's Xbox 360 and the Xbox brand as a whole in fascinating detail.

"It was nerdy, right? It was [Bill Gates]! It was [Steve Ballmer]! If you watched the video, it was 'Developers! Developers!' This is nerd central there, and I move up there and I have lunch with Steve Ballmer, and he says, 'We don't have people like you,'" Moore explained. "He had seen me on stage for Sega kinda throwing punches; I loved being a challenger of brands and giving Sony all kinds of abuse, irreverent abuse. One of my best print ads was a little redheaded ginger kid going like this [taunting gesture], and 'Sega wishes Sony all the best with their hardware shortages.' I mean, we were just mocking each other all the time. This is how the console wars started."

In Moore, executives like CEO Steve Ballmer and chief software architect Bill Gates saw a fiery spirit that wouldn't be afraid to get aggressive and take the fight to Xbox's competition. But as the importance of having a strong presence in the living room for all forms of entertainment grew, Moore was also one of the key visionaries that made the Xbox 360 an "entertainment machine."

Peter Moore’s video game stories: “Maybe the console wars were my fault” - YouTube

Watch On

"When I met with Bill, he said, 'I am concerned that Sony is going to own the living room, and that we will be forever relegated to being a computer on a desk in an office, and that's not what we want. And as broadband starts to democratize your access to the internet and entertainment will start flowing through there, we need to be in the living room. And the best way to be in the living room I see,' says Bill, 'is video games,'" said Moore.

"He saw what we eventually built with the Xbox 360 — which was previously Xenon — [which is that it] is not just a game machine, but an entertainment machine. And the tagline we came up with ... 'We're a living entertainment experience powered by human energy.' That was our line, and that's what we built,'" he continued. "But Steve said, 'I need somebody to throw punches, and we're a bunch of nerds.' His words. And we needed to revamp ... we needed our own environment."

And so, Moore and the rest of the Xbox team positioned the brand as a completely separate entity from Microsoft, keeping the company's name away from Xbox's marketing and focusing on making it that cool entertainment box for your living room, rather than something adjacent to Windows.

"In a key meeting with Bill, I said, 'Look, you're going to see the Xbox 360 packaging. You're not going to see Microsoft anywhere near. We're going to create a brand that is Xbox. Now, people will know that it's owned by Microsoft, but we need to segment ourselves away from Excel, PowerPoint, Windows, NT Server — it needs to be different. And Bill, to his credit, said 'Absolutely.' ... And so we created an Xbox brand, a lot happened to it in those succeeding years, but it sits today as one of the top 100 brands in the world. And I'm very proud our team was able to do that in those early days."

Ultimately, it's a tactic that clearly worked well — the Xbox 360 was hugely successful, and its time in the spotlight is often considered the brand's golden years by many. Of course, Microsoft made the near-fatal mistake of making its successor, the Xbox One, too focused on entertainment beyond gaming...regardless, the Xbox 360 and its performance was still a major win for Microsoft, and it's interesting to hear one of its leading minds recall how it came to be.

🗨️ What did you think of the Xbox 360?

This new interview with Peter Moore gives us some very interesting insight about the creation of the Xbox 360, as well as how Microsoft went about nurturing and growing the Xbox brand in its early years. Were you a big fan of the Xbox 360 in the 2000s? Of all the Xbox consoles that've come out, which one is your favorite? Let me know in the comments.

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.