Remember a couple of days ago we linked to an underwhelming Xbox product intro, in which Peter Moore introduced the HALO-themed Xbox 360 to yawns and snickering? You don’t? Well, Microsoft remembers. And now Peter Moore is working elsewhere.

Fresh off the startling announcement that it would take a charge of more than $1 billion to cover costs of repairing defective Xbox 360 video game consoles, Microsoft announced July 17 that its top gaming executive, Peter Moore, was leaving to run the sports franchise at top independent video game publisher Electronic Arts.

While the industry buzzed with questions about the timing of Moore’s departure less than two weeks after Microsoft announced the repair charge, Microsoft executives, in an interview with BusinessWeek, say the moves are unrelated. Microsoft officials say Moore, who was not available for comment, wanted to return to the Bay Area for family reasons… moved to the Seattle area after taking a job with Microsoft in late 2002.

Leaving to spend more time with your family is the excuse for the older executives. The younger ones generally announce they’re dehydrated.

That Xbox business is like the Monkey’s Paw: you long to posess it, it grants your wishes, then curses you. The Xbox itself though is pretty nifty. Gotta get me one of those.

-Daniel K.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 3:59 am and is filed under Computer Games, General, Halo, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.