The real reason for Moore's departure was an offer he couldn't refuse: to join Electronic Arts under new CEO John Riccitiello as head of the newly-reorganized EA Sports label. "My combination of sports experience ... and linking the two--videogames and sports--together was an obvious attraction for me; as was getting back to the Bay area which I love," he explained in a continuation of his interview with The Guardian.

"It was unfortunate because as this was going on the Red Ring of Death story broke and so for better or worse the belief was that I'd been pushed out because of the hardware problems - that was not the case at all," he added.

When the Red Ring of Death controversy broke out, Moore was Microsoft's point man for damage control. But his discretion with his words was undone by being taken out of context: "I said, 'You know, things break', and then I was called Marie Antoinette ... but the sentence [actually] was, 'things break, but our job is to go fix it for you.' So what I said was twisted to that it looked like I didn't care."

Moore, for his part, enjoys taking on his audience once in a while. He relishes the challenge of blogging as the head of EA Sports. But more than gamers, Moore was concerned about the Xbox team he left behind. "I felt bad because I didn't want people to think I was fired, because I wasn't; and I didn't want my team there to think I was jumping ship because of the hardware problems, which I wasn't. It was for personal and family reasons and the fact that I really relished the opportunity to get back into the sports side of things."