Jonathan "Seamus" Blackley (born 1968) is an American video game designer and former agent with Creative Artists Agency representing video game creators. He is best known for creating and designing the original Xbox in 2001. Career After entering Tufts University to study electrical engineering, Blackley switched to study physics and graduated in 1990, . As an undergraduate, he published his first paper in the Journal of Magnetic Resonance. After college, he studied High Energy Physics at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, until the Superconducting Supercollider project was cancelled in 1993. Blackley then went to work at Blue Sky Productions, later called Looking Glass Studios. In addition to his work on Ultima Underworld and System Shock, Blackley helped to create the sophisticated physics system in Flight Unlimited. He is mentioned in the Flight Unlimited manual as follows: Following the completion of Flight Unlimited in 1995, Blackley planned to use that game's computational fluid dynamics (CFDs) code to create a combat flight simulator called Flight Combat. However, a new manager at Looking Glass Studios demanded that Blackley instead design a direct sequel to Flight Unlimited as to directly compete with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Blackley refused and was fired, leaving the company in late 1995. After Looking Glass, Blackley worked at DreamWorks Interactive as executive producer of Jurassic Park: Trespasser, a video game sequel to the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Trespasser was designed to use a physics-rich game engine for much of the animation for the game. The game was to have been shipped by late 1997 as part of a deal that Dreamworks had made with a computer chip manufacturer, but the game was only partially completed; the chip deal fell through, and the budget for the game was significantly cut. Though the title was eventually published in 1998, its failure became renowned, and Blackley took full responsibly for its faults. During press events for Trespasser, Blackley had met Bill Gates, then the CEO of Microsoft. Gates had been impressed with the technical achievements of Trespasser, and he helped Blackley to secure a job at Microsoft in February 1999 as Program Manager for Entertainment Graphics, initially working on DirectX. During 1999, Sony introduced the PlayStation 2, which they marketed as a platform for the living room that would outdo Microsoft Windows and Linux. Blackley said that this announcement raised concerns within Microsoft of how they could challenge Sony. Blackley had