20 years is a long time, right? Surely any bad blood in those years has been squandered. Well, original Xbox creator Seamus Blackley is still feeling pretty guilty towards AMD, after a last-minute change at the console's reveal saw their work swapped for Intel hardware.
Blackley took to Twitter to make a public apology to Lisa Su, the president and CEO of AMD. He explained how a change was made at the "literal last second" before the console's reveal that saw AMD being swapped out for an Intel CPU.
To make matters worse, the AMD engineers were sitting on the front row of the presentation, which Blackley described as them "looking so sad".
Talk about awkward.
We can only imagine what an awful moment this must have been for those AMD workers, who had poured their energy into bringing the original Xbox to life, only to have it taken away from them at the last second. Blackley blamed the decision on being "pure politics".
At least Blackley has apologised for the situation, even if it wasn't directly his fault. But we still can't help but cringe at the situation and how painfully awkward it must have been at the time. At least the Xbox Series X is powered by AMD CPUs now...
What do you think about Microsoft's last-minute change from AMD to Intel? Drop us a comment and let us know.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 7
That would feel quite an awkward moment.
Since XBOX One they have been back in bed together, no hard feelings here I think.
Ouch, even I felt the betrayal.
I like Inel processors over AMD processors, but that is from personal experience. i have only had one laptop with an AMD processors and it was my last; the primary reason was that the computer crashed way to often and i had to return the unit. of course then, weeks later AMD (and HP) issued a recall on the issue and made a public apology to the users effected.
Wow, that is harsh. It shows how ruthless business can be. I’d never have done that to them, but then again I’m not a billionaire businessman and never will be.
Glad AMD are fighting back nowadays. They are back inside Xbox and their latest range of graphics cards has been amazing.
I already knew this from somewhere… can’t quite place it.
Seamus is a fans dream and a brands nightmare, he was there at the start of Xbox so he knows where the bodies are buried, and he seemingly has no filter and just speaks before thinking. Always good value.
As for the comment itself it’s pretty incendiary, but old news. Must have been super awkward for anyone with a heart.
UPDATE
Seamus said this before in the legendary Xbox Unlocked Podcast Episode 201. This is WELL worth a watch for any Xbox fan as it features 3 generations of Xbox alumni and contains many interesting anecdotes and a few skeletons. It features
It was shortly after Microsoft’s E3 in 2015 when Spencer had been in the role just over a year, was starting to turn the corner, and had just announced Backwards Compatibility for the XOne
https://youtu.be/rUODlNffWmU
Favourite quote:
Phil Spencer: Good games sell, bad games don’t
Peter Moore: There are no bad games, just bad price points
(Everybody laughs)
Phil Spencer: (the master still has lessons to teach) lol
Reminds me of Nintendo publicly screwing over Sony after they had been working together on the "Nintendo Playstation".
Sony announced its collaboration with Nintendo at CES (basically the equivalent of E3 back then), then the next day Nintendo ghosts Sony and announces they're working with Philips instead.
Sony understandably got major pissed and the rest is history.
Tap here to load 7 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...