From Switch 2 stick drift to the clunky controls of the Atari 5200, no console has ever been completely immune to trouble, but very few have gained the same notoriety as the Xbox 360 and its “red ring of death,” which former Xbox lead Peter Moore told us in 2020 cost the company $1.15 billion in damage control. Now, Moore’s willing to bet the fortune secured Xbox’s future.

Speaking to The Game Business in a new interview, Moore – who helped launch both the Xbox and 360 – guesses that if Microsoft had not spent so much time and money on repairing the “bone pile of [Xbox 360] consoles” suffering from technical issues, Xbox might have failed forever.

“It took us a while to figure out what was going on,” Moore recalled. “Were the fans in the right place? […] Trying to figure out whether, you know, […] wrapping the towel around it would create more heat, which would rejoin some of the issues of the cracks in some of the units. All of this was going on, and it was stressful. But the one thing I will always say is, you know, this was, for us, a defining moment.”

“If we hadn’t done what we did, I’m not sure the Xbox brand would be around today,” Moore stated.

What’s the Xbox brand getting up to today?

Last week, Xbox got hit by its fourth round of major layoffs in 18 months despite Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer telling staff in an email that “these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger.”

So Moore’s sweet reminiscing about the cost of saving the 360 lands with a bit of bitterness: “We felt that that was money well spent to hang on to a brand that we built, that we felt had huge viability going forward – and of course it does,” he said. “And doing good by the gamers.”

Of the 9,000 workers let go in Microsoft’s layoff blitz, less than half were at Xbox specifically.