He announced his departure shortly after the E3 2007 event, to which he is adamant it had nothing to do with his expectations of the console.
The lure of the San Francisco Bay area, and the opportunity to help grow the EA Sports label was too much to resist.
”I thoroughly enjoyed working at Microsoft, but there was a real yearning for getting back to what we as Brits living in America call home, which is the San Francisco Bay area,” said Moore.
”And you get to the point in your life where you say, do I live where I work, or do I work where I live? For me, I would rather live in the Bay area - nothing against Seattle - and there’s only really one job I would have taken to leave Xbox and that’s president of EA Sports.”
In his interview with Eurogamer, he rejected any suggestion that his departure was linked with the PlayStation 3’s improved traction against the Xbox360. The clinching point was a phone call from EA’s John Riccitiello, the CEO who has been making noise on the internal changes at the publisher.
”I wouldn’t have come to EA if the label structure wasn’t in place; there was really no room for me before then,” he explained. ”It was a combo of a great job, living back in the Bay area, and yeah it broke my heart leaving Microsoft, but sometimes you have decisions to make and this is one I did. There was no ‘I think it’s a good time to leave’.”
With his position at EA Sports he now has to hope all major platforms do well, including his former rival Sony. ”My goal is to grow EA Sports, and I need the PS3 to continue to gain momentum, I’ve got to readjust my brand on Nintendo Wii, I’ve got to look at what we do on PC,” he continued.
Click here to read the full interview between Peter Moore and Eurogamer.
