Loading ...
There has been a lot of hazy reporting over the last two days about Peter Moore’s resignation, and now that the dust has cleared I have decided to put all the info and links into one definitive post. So without further ado, here is the Peter Moore Resignation Fact Sheet.
- Peter Moore announced his resignation on the 17th and that he would be taking up a job at EA Games as the Head of the EA Sports branch of the company. Microsoft and EA confirmed this on the same day.
- The reason for Moore’s departure from Microsoft had to do with his family wanting to return to the Bay Area in California, and this EA position will allow them to live and work where they feel at home. His resignation did not have anything to do with the recent 3 year warranty business, and I am pretty sure that everyone is accepting that as fact. All of the theories about him leaving for these reasons should really be put to rest.
- Don Mattrick will sit in as Peter Moore’s replacement, who’s background in the industry includes being the President of EA, and an External Adviser at Microsoft up until now. He will step in at the end of August as Moore will stick around to halp with the transition until then. Mattrick has said that he does not think he needs to do any major tweaking at his new Xbox position, as the branch has been run very well up until now.
- Moore’s salary info at EA was announced after the press release detailing his resignation. His base salary will be $550,000 dollars and he is entitled to a discretionary target bonus of up to 75% of this. In addition, during his first 30 days at EA, Mr. Xbox 360 will receive a $1.5 million dollar signing bonus to assure he stays on board for at least 2 years. If he leaves within his first 2 years at the company, he will be responsible for paying that bonus back to the company. If Peter does indeed stay fro 2 years, he will receive 25,000 company shares, and 25,000 more will be granted to him after 4 years at EA. On top of all that, Moore will be getting $330,000 in moving expenses to help him get back to the Bay Area. Damn!
- Peter Moore says farewell to Microsoft, the Xbox community, and Major Nelson during the latest episode of Major Nelson Radio. In the interview, Moore talks about the reason for his decision and his future at EA and in the Bay Area.
After all is said and done, I don’t think anyone wants to see Peter Moore depart from his position above the platform that he helped build and make successful, but as he says during his Major Nelson Radio interview, his family’s wishes must come first over his desire to stay at a certain job. It will certainly be tough for Mattrick to fill the shoes of the former face of Xbox, but Microsoft seems to have utmost confidence in his ability to get the job done. From Halo 2 and GTA IV tattoos, to his recent foray into the world of Video Game Music Simulators with Rock Band, everyone can remember something about Peter Moore’s time at the company. Let’s just hope his successor is half the public speaker and figure as he was.
Related Link: Major Nelson Radio – The One Where Peter Moore Says Goodbye
Edit: I just noticed that I kept saying retirement instead of resignation during the post (including in the title). Oops. Sorry about that, I fixed it now.
wow…
that’s a pretty explosive reply.
“He probably got the sack for the 3shitty being such a crap product and the 2billion warranty microsoft are forking out. Sorry all u shitbox fan boys your hero is gone.”
-john
I really don’t think the 360 has enough problems to justify that kind of response, and I’m inclined to agree w/ the writer that moore isn’t leaving microsoft for those reasons anyway.
Anyone who believes the 360 failure rate, warranty extension, and $1 billion repair charge had nothing to do with Peter’s decision to leave his post at Micro$oft is kidding themself.
Microsoft is a publicly traded company, and the gaming entertainment and gaming division is hemmoraging money. It has not been profitable yet, and that was the case even before the $1 billion charge was announced. If you listen to the quarterly earnings reports this is a huge sore spot for share holders. There have been share holders screaming at management to cut the gaming operation lose, because it’s holding down the stock share price. No joke.
Even if Peter made this decision on his own, which I believe he did, he knew the writing was on the wall. He was president of Sega of America during a period of huge financial turmoil. The Dreamcast was a great console, but Sega was already in a financial hole at launch – it couldn’t afford to support the console anymore.
I’m glad to see Peter land on his feet heading EA’s sports division though. It needs a fire lit under it desperately. Peter did a great job with Sega sports before it was sold to Take Two Interactive. They always gave it 110% each year trying to improve, unlike Madden or NBA Live. Hopefully that will now change.
I think this is a sign that there are darker days ahead for the XBox 360.
It is true that Microsoft is losing rivers of money on its gaming enterprises, but this has been expected since they released the first XBox. In a sense, Microsoft wrote their gaming division a blank check on the hopes of establishing profitable returns well in the future. That money has been going to creating a better console (the xbox 360) and to encourage the creation of the current games that we enjoy playing on the said console. As the XBox 360 is increasingly becoming THE console to own, I believe that the entertainment division of Microsoft will start returning increasingly greater profits (or smaller losses, whichever you prefer
)
Also, in comparison, Microsoft has a great deal more financial stability than SEGA, and this is the reason that they are able to, with relative ease, lose vast sums of money on their entertainment division. It may be a “sore spot” for investors at the moment, but I believe that is something they will have to put up with for just a little bit longer.
Anyway, I’m sure Moore will do a great job at EA. You are right; they sorely need him.
Nice write up, I completely thought you ripped off my idea (damn my huge ego) http://www.xbox360rally.com/rip-peter-moore-2003-2007-mini-faq/ .. but was pleasantly surprised it was similar, but had different information and take on the event. Nice fact sheet!
Thanks Paco! Nice write up yourself. Yeah we followed different formats it seems, and although some information did cross over between our articles, they were quite different. Don’t worry though, if I ever get any info from your blog I’ll make sure to Ping you back!
This is an excellent article (eter Moore Resignation Fact Sheet at RotPod), I was searching for Repair shoes on Yahoo and stumbled on this Friday.
What is wonderful respecting is dealing with rather of depending on.