Takahashi uncloaks the 360

Via Gamespot

The dirt flies in Dean Takahashi's follow-up tome chronicling the efforts of software giant Microsoft to build on its success with the Xbox. The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft's Next-Generation Video Game Console goes on sale today, and apart from it being an encyclopedic timeline of the building out and launching of the Xbox 360, there's a fair amount cheeky story telling, much of it confirming previous speculation, and much of it introducing previously unspoken anecdotes.

Takahashi is a staff writer at the San Jose Mercury News, with prior stints at Red Herring and The Wall Street Journal.

Most prominent among the speculation confirmed is the telling of Robbie Bach tasking J Allard with creating a gaming handheld to compliment the Xbox 360 home console. While the handheld initiative was later scuttled, Takahashi makes clear the steps Microsoft took toward portable gaming were real.

Takahashi writes: Microsoft needed a game machine that was small. Bach assigned J Allard to take on this “next big thing.” Doing so would make a huge statement that Microsoft was going to ship this iPod killer and that it would do it with the same precision planning that it had done with the Xbox 360. Allard would run the platform, handling the hardware, software, and services for the handheld. Bryan Lee, meanwhile, would become the chief financial officer for the entire Entertainment and Devices Group and run the handheld's business side. Peter Moore would take charge of the Xbox 360 and Windows games businesses, effectively replacing Bach in his old job.

Another anecdote concerns Allard losing a bet with Newsweek game and tech writer N'Gai Croal wherein J would have to wear a deadlocks wig for the entire month of May, 2006 (including on stage during the Microsoft press briefing at E3) based around J's disbelief that Sony could sell 10 million PSPs as quickly as it sold that number of PlayStation 2s--which it did, handily.