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GDC: Microsoft's John Schappert Interview
Xbox 360 Interview by Tom Bramwell
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On Wednesday, John Schappert stood in front of the Game Developers Conference and introduced a new initiative to put community-made games on Xbox Live, and of course helped unveil Gears of War 2. We caught up with John a day later to talk about 360 hardware sales, the Wii and PS3, how the XNA, Xbox Live and Zune relationships will work, and of course what happens now that HD-DVD has died on its arse.
Eurogamer: Let's start with your keynote speech yesterday. No mention of hardware stats - do you have any updated hardware sales figures?
John Schappert: I think that we've sold 18 million, the last time I've checked. 18 million hardware units worldwide.
Eurogamer: Do you have a projection for 2008?
John Schappert: No - we haven't talked about that yet.
Eurogamer: Do you have an Xbox Live subscription projection for 2008?
John Schappert: We don't have that yet either, but here's what I can tell you: we have 10 million Live members, which we hit six months ahead of schedule. We have 4 million added in the last six months.
Eurogamer: Is that all Gold subscriptions or a mixture of Gold and Silver?
John Schappert: We don't break that up, but I can tell you the majority are Gold.
Eurogamer: Are you satisfied with these figures? Particularly the installed base?
John Schappert: I think we're very happy in some regions and I think that we think there's room for improvement in other regions.
Eurogamer: Where would you say? The one that's often mentioned to me is places where PlayStation is strong, such as Southern Europe.
John Schappert: Yes, you hit the nail on the head. We look, and we are hitting the ball out of the park in North America, and I think that there's regions of Europe where we're not doing as well as we'd like to do, and we have room for improvement. Those are renewed areas and key areas of focus for us.
Chris Lewis is now the leader of the Interactive Entertainment Business of Microsoft for Europe - a new position - so we have a very keen interest in doing even better than we have, and doubling down there. We've appointed Chris and he's building up a new organisation just focused on doing even better there.
He has nothing but respect for this. I have nothing left to play on it.
Eurogamer: The Wii has sold more than 20 million. It did that in one year. Does it worry you that it's got such acceleration compared to how you guys are doing?
John Schappert: I have nothing but respect for Nintendo - they've done great stuff, it's a nice little machine. However, I think it's a very different machine too. When you pick up an Xbox 360, it is to play games with a standard input device. You want to play Halo, you want to play your favourite sports game. I think that - bar none - we've got the best machine to play those games on. We've got higher-rated titles than the competition on that. I think it's a nice complementary machine. I think we've seen more dual-ownership this generation than before. But the machine that people are opting to play cross-platform games and third-party games is the Xbox 360.
Eurogamer: You say the Wii's a very different thing, but you were going after that mainstream demographic too. Is that still your goal? Or are you content now being a core gamer system?
John Schappert: I think we want both. So no, I think that what strategy the team worked on prior to my arrival is they wanted to capture the core gamer. The early adopter, the core gamer - I think they did a phenomenal job of capturing that core gamer. I think the next logical progression is extending out and going broader, and I think that Peter [Moore] certainly kicked it off and did a great job - Viva Pinata: Party Animals and Scene It, which did very well - and I think the other title, which isn't a first party title, is Rock Band in Northern America. It was a huge success for us. It outsold the [PS3 SKU] competition two to one. Guitar Hero - a huge success for us. And Rock Band continues to do well, where they announced at our keynote 3 million downloads of downloadable content.
Eurogamer: Do you know how many of those are on your platform?
John Schappert: I don't. I can say that if you look at the sales, we've outsold the competition two to one, so I would surmise that...you can ask them directly, but we're outselling the competition two to one.
Before the holidays, it was in sold-out status. This title was impossible to get before the holidays in North America. And I can tell you I personally walked into a Best Buy store before Christmas and there was a palette of Rock Bands, and I did a double-take and said, 'Wow', and guess what? They were all PlayStation 3 versions, which made me smile broadly as I walked on, because they didn't have any Xbox 360 versions.
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Comments: 1-47 of 47 in total
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3william56
22/02/08 @ 06:23
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"He's a wonderful man"
"He's a wonderful man" Jeez - what a suckhole. Not a single question about the RROD and the death rate on the latest models? Like the one in the conference? Yeah, you wouldn't have got an answer, but playing squirm the suit is always fun. |
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Kenshin001
22/02/08 @ 07:47
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Wow Tom, you were really hitting him over the head with the HD-DVD stuff, lol. Hope you can do one with Phil Harrison and ask him when Sony are going to pull their finger out and why their games are region free but their DLC region locked.
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seasidebaz
22/02/08 @ 08:12
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it's about a gaming machine we have that actually is the best gaming machine out there, which plays 7 of the 10 top-rated games
the other 3 out of 10 cause red-ringing |
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Penguinzoot
22/02/08 @ 08:52
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Carlo, of course they'll have sales projections for 2008. It's just that they're probably um, not very good.
BTW, personally I think they're right not doing an add-on BluRay drive and "focussing on games" instead. They probably wouldn't be able to do it cheap enough to make it a very attractive purchase, and I think it would invite unflattering comparisons with the PS3, not least on the price front. Better for them if they put clear blue water between them and Sony by reducing the price. IMO. |
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I think the main problem Microsoft have in 2008 is that the lineup of games for the 360 isn't a patch on 2007's. And this comes at a time when the Playstation 3 is finally getting into its stride. I'd be pretty sure the Microsoft do have sales projections for 2008 and they're simply not as good as last year, hence their reluctance to share them.
If I were Microsoft, I'd be aiming to launch a new slimline model of the 360 at some point this year to give sales a bit of a boost at this mid-life stage. Whether they have that in the pipeline though... who knows... |
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@KillerBee
I think 2007 was the best year for gaming since records began so it's not suprising that this year doesn't compare as well. That said Ninja Gaiden 2, Gears of War 2, Alan Wake, Too Human, GTA IV, Fable 2 are all due this year, and if I recall correctly no-one was excited by COD 4 this time last year.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 22/02/08 @ 09:35
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"John Schappert: I have nothing but respect for Nintendo - they've done great stuff, it's a nice little machine. However, I think it's a very different machine too. When you pick up an Xbox 360, it is to play games with a standard input device. You want to play Halo, you want to play your favourite sports game. I think that - bar none - we've got the best machine to play those games on. We've got higher-rated titles than the competition on that. I think it's a nice complementary machine. I think we've seen more dual-ownership this generation than before. But the machine that people are opting to play cross-platform games and third-party games is the Xbox 360."
ase a wii gamer I have to give him my respect. Finally a PR comment that's full of truth. Even fanboys can't open their eyes and see this piece of truth. |
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With regards to 'not doing very well in Europe', I'm sure this might be partly related to the fact that many times when I hear a non-English voice on, say, CoD4, any Americans in the lobby tend to shout/scream. "Speak f****** English!" or somesuch nonsense, last week a group of French players (I quietly hoped they didn't understand English) were subjected to a profanity-filled lecture about how Xbox is 'American and for English speakers only' and how they should take their 'fag foreign language' and shove it where the sun don't shine.
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Nice to see him adopting Sony's past level of arrogance. They're desperate to be number 1 yet are second to the Nintendo Wii with the possibilty of the PS3 overtaking them as well. Not adopting Blu Ray IMHO will be a mistake, the PS3 having it built in is now a massive bonus, even more so with the demise of HDDVD. Sony have stuck to their long term plan and surprisingly it seems to be working! Integration with the PSP is fantastic, Play TV looks like a nice addition and the good games are coming through.
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agparrot: While I usually ask people to speak english (even though I speak french & german amongst others). It's just better if everybody speaks the same language. Especially in team games where communication is vital.
On the other hand, you are right, there are a lot of completely anti social yanks wandering about that are abusive beyond control. But it applies uk english speaking people as well. We get called names because yanks speak with their dead monotonous accent and can't comprehend that there are people in the world that speak proper english. It's what happens if you give idiots a mic & internet. There are only a couple of things you can do: 1) Mute. 2) Leave negative feedback 3) Report users for discrimination 4) Kick the living daylights out of them online (like we did yesterday three times - at best their score was 1/4th of ours - in a row and then rub their faces in the fact that they where annihilated by 'losers' and 'weakass faggot europeans'). |
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I said this six months ago when Microsoft said the same thing but if they really wanted to give their customers a choice in respect of HD movies, they'd have sold both a BD and HD-DVD add-on, or even a unit that played both formats. Maybe then they'd have seen more impressive sales than the 3% they had with HD-DVD only?
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Maybe but most people I know are like me, completely not bothered by HDdvd/BRD. They see no reason to switch from dvd for the coming years. I think both formats or a device that supported both would be ideal for those that wanted it but I doubt that the sales of the device would have gone much further than that 3%. For the rest of us, not having to pay to shoehorn in a format has been the one and only choice.
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"With regards to 'not doing very well in Europe', I'm sure this might be partly related to the fact that many times when I hear a non-English voice on, say, CoD4, any Americans in the lobby tend to shout/scream. "Speak f****** English!" or somesuch nonsense, last week a group of French players (I quietly hoped they didn't understand English) were subjected to a profanity-filled lecture about how Xbox is 'American and for English speakers only' and how they should take their 'fag foreign language' and shove it where the sun don't shine. "
Yeah I hate that as well (TBH a lot of British do the same). I always have a big grin when those French actually own the US/UK players ;) I speak four languages... so I can always switch ;) |
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NewbieZilla
22/02/08 @ 14:35
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"Nice interview but the obvious question never came: Are they looking at the possibility of offering Live for free?"
They looked at it, but stopped because they were laughing too much. |
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@Peew971 - "Nice interview but the obvious question never came: Are they looking at the possibility of offering Live for free?"
I doubt that will ever happen because let's say there are 7 million paying LIVE sibscribers, that's £280 million per annum that Microsoft are making from that service alone so they're not going to risk losing that amount of money. |
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@ Darren: I understand completely that Live subscriptions earn some cash nobody would like to drop and I personally don't mind paying for Live. It's just that eventually, PS3 will have its own in-game XMB, download service and Home (not to mention dedicated servers), the whole lot for free. At this point, you would have to question the need to pay for one service, while the other is free.
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sanctusmortis
22/02/08 @ 17:22
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For the people wanting BluRay- what made PS3 so expensive? What sells more, DVDs or HD media?
From a business perspective, a BluRay add-on makes no financial sense. |
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thenastypasty
22/02/08 @ 20:56
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fuck you m$ iv had my console back 3 hours and its fucked again so fuck you ,you fuckers you can stick it up your fuckin arse
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The PS2 had issues too and it broken down easily, nevertheless it sold like crazy. Weather you are a Sony fanboy or not you have to hand it to MS for doing such a great job with the 360 - There's no way the PS3 is going to take off and create the disparity that existed between the PS2 and original Xbox. Not to metion the much better live serivce of MS, albeit a paid one. 50:50 for this war and the wii will be the casual/nintendo ip games console.
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thenastypasty
23/02/08 @ 01:41
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you've got to laugh ' but what kind of company sends you back a console thats still broke but gives you 1 months free live use you cant use ,bill gates i hope you get butt fucked by boghead and he leaves you with a limp!!!
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So of all the people commenting about the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD question, how many of you bought either HD units and for the PS3 owners how many of you bought it with the intention of using it to watch Blu-Ray movies on a regular basis.
Why should MS bother with a Blu-Ray drive when not only was the HD-DVD attach rate utter pants but also that Blu-Ray sales are shit. I know plenty of people who own PS3s and there's only a few movies that interest them on Blu-Ray, all the comedies, the chick flicks and kid movies they are more than happy to buy on standard DVD because the people who watch them don't care enough about the hi-Res to fork out two to three times as much for the disc. The masses have spoken, DVD res is good enough for us at the moment, Toshiba and MS listened, thats why neither have gone towards Blu-Ray. |
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immateriaux
23/02/08 @ 14:09
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@ Falbala, no product, let alone console, that I know of, survived a 33% failure rate. PS2 certainly was not anywhere close to being in that league, or the league below, or the league below that again. It is highly mis-representative to try force the comparison. Products with that sort of failure rate in a normal market would be pulled by the responsible company (or hounded off the market otherwise) but Microsoft create abnormal markets everywhere they go due to their willingness to just smother the issue in cash. To say they've done a "great job" really is absolutely ridiculous.
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immateriaux
24/02/08 @ 11:09
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@Xerx3s Whose best estimate and which edition(s) is it being based on? There's plenty of reliable sources that substantiate the 33% (or higher) claim in terms of numbers actually being returned for repair as opposed to making estimates based on samples. And whatever way you want to dice figures, the fact that MS had to take the extraordinary measure of setting aside one billion because of the issue is hardly indicative of a company "doing a great job" on its product? Just how many companies could afford a one billion fuck up fund?
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Wasnt really a bad interview he just knew that pushing in certain directions would be pointless as he would have been blanked or kicked out.
As a side note this generation hasn't spoken not really If there had only been one HD format then the change would have been a lot faster, now with only blu ray the change could come faster than people think. Its more important to look at the number of homes with HD TVs over 32" and over £600 in cost , in predicting BLu Ray Sales. Also its kinda hard to buy a new tv nowadays for the living room that isnt in some way HD and when people see how crap dvd's look on their 32" living room telly they will switch. Finally I own all three consoles , both handhelds and a kickass pc I bought my ps3 to buy most 3rd party games on because being on My 3rd 360 i have no faith in Microsoft. In my local gamestation the guy said they have around a 360 returned every day. |
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