"We didn't have our online service developed. We had never shipped a console game before as a company. So we were developing a lot of new competencies as a company and assembling a new team"
About this Quote
There is a kind of corporate candor in J Allard's line that feels almost mischievous: the admission that the Xbox-era Microsoft was stepping onto a stage it had no business owning yet. The blunt inventory of missing pieces - no online service, no console-shipping experience, no settled team - reads like a checklist of liabilities, but it functions as a flex. By naming the gaps so plainly, Allard reframes risk as momentum: the company is not behind, it is becoming.
The intent is managerial and myth-making at once. He's explaining why the early work was messy, but he's also laundering that mess into a narrative of invention. "Developing new competencies" is the polite term for organizational trauma: retooling processes, importing talent, and learning an industry that punishes amateurs. The subtext is that success here wouldn't be an iteration; it would be a conversion, from software giant to entertainment hardware contender.
Context matters: console gaming is a culture with long memories and entrenched loyalties. Microsoft's entry required more than engineering; it required credibility, partnerships, and an online identity that would later harden into Xbox Live. Allard's phrasing quietly elevates online service to a core pillar, not a feature - a signal that the future of consoles would be networked, social, ongoing. The final clause, "assembling a new team", hints at internal politics: you don't just build a product, you build a counterculture inside a legacy company. That, more than the tech, is what makes the quote work.
The intent is managerial and myth-making at once. He's explaining why the early work was messy, but he's also laundering that mess into a narrative of invention. "Developing new competencies" is the polite term for organizational trauma: retooling processes, importing talent, and learning an industry that punishes amateurs. The subtext is that success here wouldn't be an iteration; it would be a conversion, from software giant to entertainment hardware contender.
Context matters: console gaming is a culture with long memories and entrenched loyalties. Microsoft's entry required more than engineering; it required credibility, partnerships, and an online identity that would later harden into Xbox Live. Allard's phrasing quietly elevates online service to a core pillar, not a feature - a signal that the future of consoles would be networked, social, ongoing. The final clause, "assembling a new team", hints at internal politics: you don't just build a product, you build a counterculture inside a legacy company. That, more than the tech, is what makes the quote work.
Quote Details
| Topic | Team Building |
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