Former Xbox exec Robbie Bach, who was president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division until 2010, has been speaking a bit about his time on the Xbox team in an interview with Twitch Gaming.
As part of the interview, Bach along with former Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aimé and former Sony Computer Entertainment America president Jack Tretton, gave his thoughts on the so-called "console wars" during his time at the company, admitting they were "hardcore" and it was a "super competitive" time:
"I think there was a lot of competition, certainly within Microsoft. We looked and said, 'those are the two guys we have to beat', and we were just getting started - they were the established players - and so you sort of play the underdog card... people were super competitive back then."
"I will say this, it was never personal. But between the companies, it was hardcore. And they were the people we had to beat."
The two other bosses also went on to describe their experiences, echoing the thoughts of Bach that there was plenty of competition, but nevertheless each company was primarily focused on their own work.
Of course, things have changed significantly over the past few years, and current head of Xbox Phil Spencer has stated on numerous occasions that he's not interested in the idea of a console war in the Xbox Series X generation.
What do you make of Bach's comments on the console wars? Give us your thoughts down below.
[source twitch.tv]
Comments 6
Probably not as hardcore as the early 90s. I mean, dang. I'm surprised neither company hired hitmen to kill the other's president, they hated each other so much.
Now its just pathetic people on Twitter trying to get as many followers as possible by endlessly criticising the other consoles
Definitely not 90's console wars levels of hardcore considering PS2 basically wiped the floor with everything else but this was like the last decade I can remember where gaming consoles actually had personality. The designs of the PS2, Xbox and GameCube were so loud and I feel like the PS5 and Series X are kind of harkening back to that era where everything had a wildly different aesthetic
@carlos82 "b-b-b-bbut muh TERAFLOPS"
At the time, I was only into the GameCube as I only cared about Nintendo back then - and I missed a lot of great games on other consoles!
These days I’m completely platform agnostic and pretty much get them all, and buy games wherever they play best, cost the least, and/or make the most sense in regards to online play, sharing games, or portability options.
The whole idea of a console war seems silly to me at this point. That being said, when companies compete, typically the consumer is who wins, so I’m all for console game/service exclusives and whatnot as I’ll be able to experience whatever it is either way 😎
I should have bought an Xbox after the DC went bust...
But PS2 seemed like a safer bet at the time and had BC.
Later, I got interested again but the 360 initially had no BC for Xbox.
Then Red Ring hit and I didn't want to take a chance on 360 either.
Eventually got an XO for the exclusives and all the older BC titles.
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