Takahashi realizes that his book may annoy Microsoft corporate types.

"Any of the insidery stuff they just really didn't want to get out," he said. "The fact that the initial code name was Project Midway -- they don't want the Japanese people to know that because it will hurt their feelings." The Battle of Midway in 1942 was the turning point of the Pacific War. Before the November 2001 launch of the Xbox, all of the players in the console hardware market -- Sony, Nintendo and Sega -- were Japanese firms.

Takahashi's portrayal of the corporate machinations at Microsoft is a fascinating thing to behold. His depiction of Microsoft as a feuding bureaucracy might give pause to those who think of Microsoft as a ruthlessly efficient, unstoppable juggernaut.

"The fact that they seemed to waffle so much sheds a bad light on their decision making," offers Takahashi, who adds, "They have these constant battles between the strategic thinkers, the game-industry advocates, the financial people, and the longtime Microsoft veterans on how you're supposed to do things. All that strategizing tends to slow down people who really want to move fast. The consequence of that is that Sony had 25 million [units of PlayStation 2] at the end of 2001 deployed. Xbox had one and a half million. It's a huge difference in whether they are able to catch up or not."

While Takahashi's book did little to enhance Blackley's job security, perhaps his exit was inevitable. The 34-year old ex-Xbox champion emerges in the book as a flamboyant, driven visionary with an abiding passion for game design.

"I put myself behind the eight ball well enough at Microsoft," he said. "I was always the guy from the game industry doing crazy stuff. The stuff in the book was no surprise to the people who were there next to me."

"I think he stayed a lot longer than he wanted to," Takahashi said. "I was surprised that he did stay as long. He did more than his share of the work evangelizing the Xbox. He had to sell the idea inside the company and then all the way up to Bill Gates. And then he had to sell it to the game developers, gamers and media. His job was mostly done. He had a hard time going up against skeptics every day who didn't believe that Microsoft could really do anything right. He sort of had this obligation to be the voice for game developers inside Microsoft, so that also made him stick around longer."

So what kind of mess is Blackley leaving behind? Is the Xbox a sinking ship? Did Project Midway somehow turn into Pearl Harbor?

"Blackley's departure will have an effect on some of the game artists who still have a lot of sway as to whether or not games get made for the Xbox," offered Takahashi. "I don't think his departure will have much effect on the business people who are cutting the deals and creating the exclusive contracts and otherwise making platform decisions about the future of the business. He had more influence with the artists than he did with the business people. Right now the fate of the Xbox is really up to the business people executing the plan that Microsoft set out for it. The same management team is in place. They still have the chance to pull off a strong third place. They might have a shot at second if Nintendo doesn't execute very well. In the long run people are expecting that over five years or so there will be 30 million Xboxes in place, a similar number of GameCubes, and probably a hundred million PlayStation 2s."

So if Takahashi's right, it's third place for the Xbox, unless Nintendo screws up -- and Nintendo doesn't screw up too often.

"Microsoft has lost a lot of the positive momentum they had from the U.S. launch," he said. "Momentum is everything in this business. It determines whether or not people will continue making games for your platform."

Recent Stories