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Comment by hn3er1q | Hacker News Reader

The engineering teams were probably running both programs in parallel. I've had this happen to me several times. Sometimes, project B is just leverage [1] so that a better deal can be negotiated, so you half-ass project B, and that's fine and just business. But sometimes it's not, and that situation sucks.

[1] Factory resources are scarce, so it's obvious to the engineering team how serious management is about things. Word spreads.

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"Seamus Blackley apologized on Twitter to the AMD engineers who worked with Microsoft to create the prototype Xbox consoles that the company used in the lead-up to the OG Xbox's release in November 2001. To AMD CEO Lisa Su, Blackley said, "I beg mercy."

"I was standing there on the stage for the announcement, with [Bill Gates], and there they were right there, front row, looking so sad," he said of AMD engineers in the room. "I'll never forget it. They had helped so much with the prototypes. Prototypes that were literally running the launch announcement demos ON AMD HARDWARE."

"I felt like such an ass," Blackley said."

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/20-years-later-xbox-creato...

Wow. I mean there's a colloquial "last minute" but that sounds like a literal, last minute.

> Wow. I mean there's a colloquial "last minute" but that sounds like a literal, last minute.

Man, indeed. Must've really sucked if that guy still thought about it 20 years later. But well, at least amd is in those consoles today. :)

Still wonder where those AMD prototypes are today. Seems there's a non-zero chance to get them working with release titles.

One example of a "Project B" happening was between Nintendo and Citizen during the time of the Game Boy. Citizen had a color LCD screen available, and there was progress on designing a handheld game console to use that screen. But it turned out to be a Project B to negotiate with Sharp and use their black and white LCD instead. Then Citizen proceeded to work with Sega instead with the Game Gear.

Source: LowSpecGamer on YouTube

Given that this was circa 2000, could have had provisions for 2 more prototypes for Transmeta and VIA. I doubt they would have gotten far or even start given that they likely wouldn't have very competitive options, but it's fun to think about.

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