Blackley's New Groove

May 9, 2002 11:05 PM

Since I can't sleep I thought I would give you this piece of news. As some might remember, the Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley quit Microsoft not too long ago. Word is now spreading on what his new business venture is, a game production company. It will not publish games, it will merely finance them and then sell the finished product to a publisher. Much like what happens in the movie industry. Blackley decided to start this company due to lack of creative games coming out.

Blackley said his decision to pursue a new segment of the game industry was born partly from his experience with the Xbox, which wasn't generating the kind of creative, breakthrough game concepts he had envisioned.
"When we developed the Xbox, we thought we were providing this powerful platform for people to create cool games," Blackley said. "Turns out that's not all you need. You need to look at the business side, too, because developing games is a crappy business."

Capital Entertainment Group, as the venture is called, will start with a production fund of $40 to $50 million. It already has a deal two deliver two games to Sega. It will be interesting to see if this kind of company can work in the game industry.