- 1 week ago
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00:00Go ahead, Michael, please.
00:01OK, yeah, I was talking about the 360 a little bit more.
00:04And I know we talked about this in previous episode with Ryan.
00:08Who's what was your friend we talked to?
00:09Who? Oh, Greg Canessa.
00:11Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked to him about Xbox Live Arcade.
00:14And so I I kind of want to get your perspective on the push
00:18for Xbox Live Arcade.
00:19What was that like?
00:20Because it was such a key part in like what you were doing with
00:23bridging the gap between Xbox and the community and then pushing
00:27these indie games or the smaller scale games as another way to,
00:32you know, engage with the platform and discover things that
00:35people wouldn't find otherwise.
00:37Like there was a discoverability aspect to it.
00:39And so I kind of want to get your your insight on that.
00:42That was always in turn.
00:43I mean, that was first of all, Greg, I adore him.
00:46He's a he's a great friend.
00:47I haven't talked to him in a long time, but when they came
00:49and we were working on Xbox Live Arcade, it was it was exactly
00:52Michael, exactly what you said.
00:53But it was also this also another thing.
00:55It was really critically important.
00:57This was the first managed device that had an app store.
01:04Think about it.
01:05Yeah.
01:05Steam had come out, but that was on PC.
01:06So it was, you know, it was free iPhone.
01:08Precisely.
01:09Yeah.
01:09So this is the very first time a device that was managed, meaning
01:13you couldn't just open and put any operating system or really, you
01:16know, it was it was a managed device that we had a curated app
01:19store.
01:21That was the first one.
01:22Wow.
01:22So we we we didn't realize what we were stumbling into.
01:25But the most important part of this was, hey, here's a game.
01:29You can download it now.
01:31It was the beginning of that generation because the games remember
01:33they all had to be under a certain file size and so on and
01:36so forth.
01:37So it was a real amazing thing that we did there that when we when
01:42you look back, you're like, well, of course.
01:44But looking down there and I could tell there are certain moments
01:49in my career that I could tell there's going to be that were
01:52incredibly special.
01:53That was one of them.
01:54I said, this is the beginning of a new era.
01:56The other one, unfortunately, was horse armor.
01:59Oh, great.
01:59Yeah, because like that goes hand in hand.
02:03Right.
02:03With like being able to exactly right building an app store.
02:06It's like the benefit is like I got downloadable games.
02:09I got small size games.
02:10I can play it right now.
02:11And there's there's a sense of connectedness and immediacy that is
02:15now expected, but was not bad.
02:16That's because again, people take it for granted because now we've got
02:20always connected devices.
02:21You can do iDev video and download anything.
02:23But you didn't have to go.
02:24I could sit on my couch in the middle of a blizzard and download a game.
02:29Boom.
02:29Yeah, but as a consequence to it paved the way for like microtransactions
02:34that rub people the wrong way.
02:35So I'm not going to say that that's abuse, but everybody was testing
02:39different different difference different ways to I don't want to say
02:43exploit it, but but, you know, use that that system.
02:46Yeah, for sure.
02:47I mean, yeah, I have vivid memories, of course, working at OXM of of the
02:54original Xbox after Xbox Live had come online.
02:57There were some publishers that that were testing the waters then with free
03:02DLC like Ubisoft specifically.
03:05They added, I think, two X.
03:07One of them was called Kona Cell.
03:09They added extra emissions for free to Splinter Cell.
03:13Yes.
03:13But eventually, yeah, of course, it became a paid thing.
03:17And now the whole now like does it kind of do you do you think it's a
03:24little crazy, Larry, that the entire world is microtransactions now?
03:28Like when you fly on an airline, it's a microtransaction.
03:31Like there are microtransactions are everywhere now.
03:34And they arguably started with the 360.
03:37It's your fault.
03:38No, no.
03:39You know what?
03:39Patience heroes.
03:40There's two things that I kind of smile at the corner of my mouth with when
03:45it happens.
03:46One is exactly that.
03:47All, you know, wait, my car, I want to unlock heated seats.
03:51What's going on here?
03:51Well, no.
03:52Two is when I see the gamification because we did that with achievements.
03:57So there's two areas where that you can look back and draw a direct solid line to
04:02these those two elements specifically.
04:04And of course, the and then the then, of course, we talked about the the app
04:08store, the managed app store.
04:09So do not, you know, the Xbox 360 great gaming platform.
04:13We're not going to deny that, but this is a great opportunity to talk about all
04:16these other innovations.
04:18And that's where I'm so incredibly proud to have been part of that team.
04:22It was a dream.
04:23It was an absolute dream.
04:25Yeah.
04:27On the since we're on the topic of this, too, it's like being the face of a
04:31community and having to interface with a lot of the fans, like whether it is
04:35kind of pushback on, you know, microtransactions or like the because the
04:39growing trend, people were like pretty fiery about it.
04:41It was new and they didn't know how to react.
04:43And now it's kind of like we roll our eyes sometimes or we just accept it.
04:47But like at the time, like how was how hard was it to like it was hard because
04:50it was this was a new a new era.
04:54This was a new paradigm.
04:56This was something that and I don't I would have done the same like, oh, my God,
04:59what's going on?
04:59I don't understand it.
05:01But, you know, fortunately, we had developer partners that some of the DLC was
05:05high quality.
05:06You know, Brian talked about some of it was free.
05:09So everybody was really experimenting with this framework and this platform that we
05:14helped develop.
05:15And someone's going to be six at the end of the day.
05:17It's the numbers, right?
05:18It either it's going to sell or not sell.
05:22Larry, but the recently you had posted on social media showing off your never turned
05:29on launch team Xbox 360 that was only distributed.
05:34It was a special, special version distributed only to the people that worked on launching
05:39the 360.
05:40Yeah.
05:41So I'm not going to ask you to turn it on because God only knows.
05:45Let me let me.
05:45Do you want me to get it?
05:46Let me get it for you.
05:47Get it.
05:47OK, yeah, because I got a special show and then I have a question about it.
05:51Yeah.
05:52Special treat for those who watch the video version.
05:54Look at this.
05:55So I've got I've got two that sit up on the shelf behind me.
06:00Yeah.
06:00Two things.
06:01So one is here.
06:02Here's the launch console.
06:03Yes.
06:04You can see it again.
06:06We designed the console to be either horizontal or vertical.
06:11Right.
06:11And doesn't it feed the heart drive have your name or gamer tag engraved on it?
06:15Do I remember that correctly?
06:16It does.
06:17Yeah.
06:17It's out of there.
06:18It goes.
06:19Just focus.
06:20Come on, focus.
06:21Come on, focus.
06:22I'll bring it back here a little bit.
06:23But it's in fact, in fact, let's not forget, Ryan.
06:27It snaps off.
06:28It popped off.
06:29Yeah.
06:29So here is, you know, here it is.
06:32There it is.
06:32Major Nelson with the concentric rings over there.
06:36That's so sick.
06:37And so this is this is has never been turned on.
06:41And then, oh, by the way, we've got this little, you know, I made this at the bottom.
06:45Yeah.
06:45It's got some really cool stuff in here.
06:47This has never been turned on because I remember getting this and I was so proud that I was on
06:53the team that made this.
06:56And I I was like, I'm going to save this because this is going to be something.
06:59And here we are 20 years later.
07:01And this this this she looks as new as the day that I took it out of the box.
07:06I mean, picking this up, I just get emotional.
07:09I mean, I don't know if you can see.
07:10I understand that.
07:11Yeah, I can definitely understand that.
07:13The the production date on this is manufactured October 9th, 2005.
07:19So like first run of the retail units, basically.
07:22Very, very, very first run of the retail unit.
07:24And also, it's funny.
07:25We also forget it had a proprietary power adapter.
07:29Yeah.
07:29Oh, yeah.
07:30It had a proprietary AV adapter.
07:32Yeah.
07:32Yeah.
07:33It had this was a USB over here, which was new above the Ethernet.
07:36And then we had the two USBs behind the behind the port in the front.
07:39Yeah, this is before HDMI was was the standard.
07:42Yep.
07:42Actually long before.
07:44So I sitting on my shelf behind me, I've got that.
07:46But the other thing that's really precious to me, and I don't think anyone's ever seen
07:49this.
07:49So this is maybe an exclusive.
07:51Well, take it.
07:52World premiere.
07:53This is a mini Xbox 360 that contains all of the custom chips that we did.
08:01That is awesome.
08:03And this was given to our partners that were that helped us realize the vision of Xbox
08:08360.
08:09So this sits on the shelf behind me as a reminder of the power of partnership and just
08:17what it takes.
08:18At the end of the day, these chips did all the hard work.
08:22I don't know which one was responsible for Red Ring of Death, but these chips did the hard
08:25work.
08:25I've never seen that before.
08:27I know.
08:28That's why I wanted to bring it out for you.
08:28I didn't even know that was a thing.
08:30That is super cool.
08:31So if you're after 20 years at Microsoft, if your Microsoft stock did not allow you to
08:38will not allow you to retire comfortably, you could sell those two things.
08:42And probably you'd probably be very, very set to go for the for the remaining years of
08:47your life.
08:47I will say this is I have nothing bad to say about the company.
08:51They I was there.
08:52I had the time and ride of my life.
08:54Um, and it is, it is, it is, it is, it is one of my greatest professional achievements
08:59without a doubt.
08:59So I'm, I'm proud to say that I work there and I'm proud that, that what we built, that
09:05so many people were interested in it and, and just really, cause really at the end of
09:09the day, I don't know if you've ever heard us say this, we built it for ourselves and
09:15we had the greatest time.
09:16And, you know, one of the funny things was, is we used to have to back in the day, Ryan,
09:20I don't know if you remember this.
09:21Um, we used to have to take the service down like overnight when it was being upgraded.
09:26And so it was a big deal cause we would bring it up and then we'd only allow us internally
09:29on our IP numbers to hit it once it came back online.
09:32So we all had discs.
09:34We all had to go to our office and test the disc that it could log in and it worked.
09:38So there were hundreds of us with hundreds of discs each, every single game.
09:41And it was, we always used to say, wow, okay, I guess we need to open up Xbox live to
09:45the rest of the world now, because it was, we knew who it was.
09:47And so we had fun with it and it was like, okay, come on in everybody else.
09:51Oh, so good.
09:53Um, last question on the, on your launch team 360 there.
10:00Do you, is, is that device that was in your hands moments ago?
10:05Could that be the last surviving example of the blades dashboard?
10:09Cause that's, what's baked on there right now.
10:11I'm actually going to tell you another little secret.
10:14Yes, it probably is.
10:16Um, but it must be protected at all costs.
10:19Everybody's like, don't turn it on.
10:21And to be honest with you, I don't even know if I could find the power supply anymore.
10:23But the funny thing is, is I remember we talked, I talked a moment ago about how there's moments
10:32in your life that you realize you don't realize a day later, you realize at that moment, this
10:37is a significant moment.
10:38Yeah.
10:38And I remember, I believe it was August 15th, 2005, we were in a meeting, it was the middle
10:46of August and we were deciding if this build number that we had to send the build number
10:52to manufacturing.
10:52Cause they had to start making them right.
10:54And this build number 1888, that is what you took out of the box that gave you the blades
11:00right there.
11:00So I remember 1888, it's like seared in my brain.
11:04So I remember seeing that meeting and engineering and test and QA and everybody going, yep, 1888,
11:09that's the one let's go.
11:10And there was a little party after that.
11:12I, I, we didn't have, because remember we didn't have a way to, we didn't really have a
11:16way to, to, we had to ship something there that we, that system updates day one updates
11:20were something that hadn't really been invented or adopted yet.
11:23So we didn't have that concept.
11:25Yeah.
11:25I, I mean, I remember you're, you're reminding me, I believe it was mid to late September.
11:31So like a little over a month later at OXM, we got our three sixties.
11:36Yeah.
11:37Cause you know, we, and the magazine we're working like two months ahead and this, this
11:41was, you know, you, we would be doing everything way ahead of time.
11:44And that was, I remember that we were like, we were all like adults on,
11:50but except like kids on Christmas morning, but we were all adults.
11:53Like it was, that was a special day with the day that we got all of our three sixties
11:58and can actually start, you know, we took so much care in the packaging and the branding
12:02and the, just everything about it was bespoke and we loved it.
12:06And we, we, it was handcrafted.
12:08I mean, I know in one of the earlier videos you were, we had the, one of the designers
12:13talking about Ryan, do you remember how we used to describe this profile?
12:17The inhale, right?
12:19Exactly.
12:19This was the console inhaling before it explodes with energy.
12:23Yes.
12:23And so we had this whole design philosophy of, and, and I remember going into the millennium
12:28D I was on the third floor.
12:30I don't remember the number, but it was the design lab.
12:32And we had sample consoles that we would design.
12:35There's like a year and a half or two years before of what it was going to look like.
12:38Cause at the end of the day, you pull the console apart.
12:39All it is, is a, you know, it's a PC board, but what is it going to look like?
12:43And I remember looking at all the different ones and I would go in there sometimes and
12:45just seriously, this is how intense we were and how much I loved what I did.
12:50I would sit in there sometimes with the lights low, looking at each one.
12:55And then I go over and turn it on its side.
12:56How would it look under the TV and just really getting like vibing with each individual one.
13:01And this one always came to the top.
13:04Yeah.
13:05I love that.
13:05Yeah.
13:06Oh man.
13:07Um, I mean, it's also like being part of the community and like being involved with
13:13the team, like, you know, this was a, this was a pretty state of the art piece of tech,
13:18especially in gaming.
13:19And, and especially in 2005, like this, we had never experienced HD gaming before.
13:25Like having a set, having this run at seven 20 P was crazy, uh, for off of a console.
13:30But with that, uh, push in technology also came like a lot of, you know, difficulties along
13:35with that and you had mentioned the red ring of death.
13:37So like when that started to become pretty prominent within the community, like how did
13:42you, how did y'all handle that internally?
13:44And, um, I know that there was initiatives to get your 360 fixed and, uh, without cost.
13:50Um, but I think like that, that's, that must be like such a, like, it's, um, like, how do
13:55you handle that internally and how do you like be the face of the community when things
13:59like this are happening?
14:00Yeah.
14:00Was there, was there a moment where you were, where it just dawned on all of you that were,
14:04where you were, you were like, Oh, this is bad.
14:07I'll tell you this.
14:08I have a very peculiar sixth sense of things like this.
14:12And I remember seeing a couple of things pop up in the Xbox forums when we had forums.
14:17And I remember calling the head of the ATG, which is our advanced technology group.
14:21And I said, Hey, I'm something's going on here.
14:25I think this isn't right.
14:28And he's like, well, we looked at it.
14:30And then that's when I remember I was like, you know, I had been at Microsoft full time
14:35for four or five, five years at this point, I got pulled into a meeting with Robbie Bach
14:38and they're like, what is the community saying?
14:41And then, and then he, Robbie and Peter, they're like, and, and, and Jay, they're like, we got
14:46to do the right thing.
14:47And that's when they had to go to Steve Ballmer and say, it's going to cost a billion dollars
14:50or so.
14:51I don't remember the exact number.
14:52I think it was Peter, Peter told the story on a podcast unlocked episode 201 when I had him
14:58and Phil and Seamus.
14:59I, yeah, I think it might've been two, two billion.
15:01Yeah.
15:01I mean, I mean, I don't remember this.
15:03It just lose track of it, but, and I, cause it was just so, I was like, and everybody was
15:08like, no, we're going to do the right thing here.
15:10And that's what we did.
15:11So if you remember, you got the coffin, the box in, you put your console in and we sent
15:15you another console.
15:16So it cost us a lot of extra money to do this, but it was the, it had to be, there's Carl.
15:21Oh God, I love Carl.
15:22He's still there.
15:23Um, and so, and, and Albert, uh, Albert's a dear friend of mine, um, is that we wanted
15:27to do the right thing by the community.
15:29You trusted us.
15:30You trusted us with your money.
15:32You chose us a platform and we are going to make it right.
15:35Yeah.
15:36Yeah.
15:36And I think that's, uh, I mean, obviously it's the right call because of me as a kid.
15:41I'm like, yo, I want my 360 back.
15:43Like I want to make sure it works, but I think like it's hard to quantify what kind of influence
15:47that has in the future.
15:48Like, yes, it's going to cost upwards of a billion dollars to do this, but what you get
15:52in turn is like, you retain the people that you got in the first place longterm.
15:58And it's like, like, do you quantify that?
16:00Like, I imagine that's part of the conversations as well.
16:02Like, no, this is the right thing to do.
16:03It's going to cost a lot now, but trust me, like it, when we're talking about keeping people
16:08on your platform, that level of trust will pay off.
16:11And that's hard to quantify.
16:13It absolutely did.
16:14I mean, when you look, it was a hard pill to swallow.
16:17We knew we had to do it.
16:18There's Todd, we knew we had to do it and it was the right thing to do.
16:22And we knew we would come out of it.
16:24But once we, once people started saying, thank you, I got it back.
16:26I'm playing again.
16:27It's just all of a sudden red ring became almost a meme as opposed to something that
16:33could have torpedoed the brand.
16:35Well, do you ever wake up in a cold sweat now, like thankful that that, that that didn't
16:42happen like five years later when social media had like, if that happened now to Microsoft,
16:49to Sony, to Nintendo, it would be, it would be absolutely catastrophic.
16:54Wouldn't it?
16:54Yes.
16:55Yeah.
16:55There was, it's, it would, it would be absolutely that.
16:58You're right.
16:58Because everybody, especially now with the, you'd be, you, you, I would see nothing.
17:02YouTube would be nothing but of the red ring of death.
17:05Okay.
17:06And it would just be gross.
17:07Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, that isn't, but I'll tell you, I'll tell you, gentlemen,
17:12we handled it so well, the team professionally executed.
17:17It made my job kind of easy because we just did the right thing.
17:20When you're in, when you're at this crossroads in life and you're like, this is the right
17:24thing to do.
17:24Everything else lines up and you as the community understood it.
17:28You embraced us.
17:29You're like, thanks for, thanks for doing the right thing.
17:32There's other times that kept me up late at night that, you know, we could talk about
17:35another time if you want, but that's, this isn't it.
17:38Um, what were some of your, this is super open-ended question.
17:43What were some of your favorite memories from the 360 era?
17:46I mean, you know, you kind of touched on the launch in the desert and, but then, you know,
17:50you got things like Halo three's launch, but can just what, what pops to mind when I ask
17:55you that question of, of some of those just highlight memories, big moments.
18:01It's, it's, it's so the moment those doors opened up in Palm and, you know, out in Palmdale
18:07when we were doing, in fact, I've got my sweatshirt here for zero hour.
18:10We were there at zero hour, like, Hey, let's.
18:12Let's do a party in the desert.
18:14We didn't know if anybody was going to show up.
18:16We didn't know if one person was going to show up a thousand or 10,000, but all of a
18:21sudden it was like, it was like out of a movie where down this dusty road and the dust is
18:26going up and the people are coming and coming.
18:28I was like, Oh my God, it's happening.
18:30So that happened.
18:31So we knew we had something.
18:32And then the doors opened up and Peter Moore and Jay Allard are up on the scaffolding.
18:36I remember being with them.
18:37So that was one.
18:41Just, we didn't have the instant feedback that we did now of Twitter and Tik TOK and all
18:47the rest of those things.
18:48So just going online and seeing the stories and seeing people love what we did and then
18:54going back into the millennium office and having our engineers work on the things and
18:59seeing people accept it.
19:00I remember, I remember so vividly, you know, we had back compatibility, backwards compatibility
19:05on Xbox 360 before we announced that the engineers who were working on it were downstairs
19:10around the hall for me.
19:11And I would go by on my way to lunch or back from lunch or to a meeting.
19:15And I would always see this number in a piece of paper on the front of one of the lead engineers
19:20two.
19:21And it was two.
19:22And then a couple of days later, it was three.
19:24So meaning Halo one and Halo two, the number of games.
19:27Nope.
19:28No, it was frames per second.
19:30Oh, and all of a sudden they hit a point and it was now 20, 21, 22.
19:37And it was, they were going seriously engineering day by day to get a frame every single day
19:42out of the backwards compatibility.
19:44And I remember standing there and I just, the shivers came down my spine.
19:47Cause I was like, this is so cool.
19:49Yeah.
19:50So, and there's the doors opening and out there and out there, it was just an amazing.
19:54So that's one of the moments.
19:56The other moment was being down.
19:57I think it was the Halo three launch.
19:59Was that New York City, Ryan?
20:00Correct me if I'm wrong.
20:01I wasn't at the, the like sort of official launch.
20:04Cause I had had the great, great, great privilege of, I'd already reviewed the game at Bungie
20:10like two months before that.
20:12Thanks for checking out this clip from Unlocked, IGN's weekly Xbox show.
20:16If you enjoyed it, don't forget to watch the full episode at youtube.com slash IGN games.
20:21New episodes of Unlocked drop every Thursday on IGN games, IGN.com and your favorite podcast platforms.
20:29Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.
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