Employee fired for talking to journalist about Xbox 360 "Red Ring of Death"
Dubbed by our own Brownlee as “one of the greatest fuck ups in hardware history“, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 failures — the storied “Red Ring of Death” — has cost the company a billion dollars in repair expenses and quite possibly one talented executive. Reporter Dean Takahashi wrote a fantastic investigate piece chronicling the failure — and now his prime source, Robert Delaware, is being fired (fair enough) and sued (harsh!).
From Takahashi, writing for VentureBeat:
Delaware, a 29-year-old Seattle resident, expects to face civil charges from his former employer VMC (which tests games for Microsoft) and Microsoft as well. He will likely have to hire a lawyer. Microsoft spokesman David Dennis said the company does not talk about personnel issues.
“I don’t regret it,” he said in a phone call on Thursday. “I’ll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on.”
A commenter on VB fairly sums up my feelings on the matter, provided Delaware’s information is accurate:
True that violation of an NDA is obvious grounds for termination, but it should be equally important to note that when someone puts their livelihood on the line to become a whistle blower they automatically deserve a fair amount of credibility. And, lets be clear, while there is a lot of people who will report similar things anonymously, it takes a lot of guts to put your name and reputation on the line, people like this should be commended.
Microsoft fires game test contractor who talked to VentureBeat [VentureBeat.com]
Image: Andrew Burgess
Update:
