Da Microsoft’s Xbox mand Seamus Blackley forlod posten, løb rygterne hurtigere end de egentlige fakta. Nogle mente at han smed det hele fra sig, og sagde op fordi Xbox konsollen til at starte med solgte dårligt, andre at han havde fået job hos Sony. Nu har han imidlertid selv fortalt om episoden.
Det hele skyldes Dean Takahashi’s fascinerende og meget grundige bog Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution. Her fortælles der alt om Microsoft’s lange vej og planer med deres konsol. Efter udgivelsen af bogen har Seamus Blackley taget bladet fra munden, og fortalt hvordan det egentlig hænger sammen:
"I talked to my three partners many months ago about this idea for the company, which is largely based on our common experience about the challenges of game development and game publishing and what was stopping innovative games from getting made."
Og han fortsætter:
"It's the kind of stuff, that we talked about at GDC [Game Developers Conference], when I'd hang out with Phil Harrison [of Sony] or those Nintendo guys. We all have the same problem. We'd launch a new console but we can't get people to make new content for it. It's a big investment for the publishers and it's a risk for developers. Based on our experience we realized there's an opportunity to make a company that could really encourage a lot of products to be made and to be made really well."
På spørgsmålet om hvorfor han forlod Microsoft sagde han meget kort:
"Xbox is OK. I'm not leaving because Xbox is screwed up. I'm leaving for entirely selfish personal reasons. I want to go make games."
Hvilke spil og formater Seamus vil begive sig ud i, vil forhåbentlig blive afsløret på årets store E3 Messe i Los Angeles.