In an interesting new podcast published by The Inner Circle Network, the group conducted a lengthy interview with Xbox founder, Seamus Blackley, who gave us some insight and his personal input on a variety of issues within the games industry including cancellations like that of Scalebound and the risk involved in putting out new IPs.
Throughout the course of the interview, Blackley talks about the competition between Microsoft and Sony going as far back as the PlayStation 2 era and at one point, briefly talked about Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn (starting around the 42.00 mark).
“I want big releases,” he said while praising the game but also noted that it’s a “100 million Dollar bet” that requires a lot of courage. Blackley said Guerrilla is a great developer but that it takes “balls” to bring such projects to the market and that Yoshida “is the man” for sticking by it even if it wasn’t looking too good at times during the development.
“You guys as Xbox gamers owe a huge debt of gratitude to Yoshida-san because he’s a f****** bad***,” remarked Blackley while referring to competition. “He’s pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, and he’s also a gamer.”
Blackley is of the view that being gamers themselves, leaders like Yoshida know games inside out and their leadership makes a difference.
You can check out the full interview above.
[Source: TICGN]
