Microsoft cans whistleblowing game tester
So much for radical transparency. Microsoft's embrace of honest online criticism stopped at VentureBeat blogger Dean Takahashi's insanely long story about how the software giant launched its Xbox 360 game console despite production flaws. The story had one source brave enough to go on the record: Robert Delaware, a contract game tester, who talked about a bug he encountered during testing phases persisting as the Xbox went into production. Now he's out of a job and faces a civil suit from Microsoft for violating a nondisclosure agreement.“I don’t regret it,” he told VentureBeat in a phone call on Thursday. “I’ll fight it. If they want to come after me, bring it on." "This kind of witch-hunt mentality is wrongheaded," writes Takahashi. "When I was thinking about making a difference with our story this isn’t what I had in mind." We're just amazed that Microsoft's legal team made it through all six pages of Takahashi's story.