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Microsoft's John Schappert Interview
Xbox 360 Interview by Ellie Gibson
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A year ago, who would have predicted that come October 2008 Xbox 360 sales would be exceeding PS3 in Japan? Or that Microsoft would be making the most headlines at the Tokyo Game Show? But that's exactly what's happened, which must be good news for John Schappert.
He's the corporate vice president of live, software and studios within Microsoft's entertainment and devices division - the boss of Xbox Live, in other words. As you'll know if you read our live text coverage, his keynote speech at TGS included some important announcements regarding the launch of the New Xbox Experience and a new Halo 3 standalone expansion pack.
Afterwards, Eurogamer and a few other journalists sat down with Schappert for a roundtable interview about 360's newfound popularity, NXE, the importance of innovation and more. Here's what he had to say.
Eurogamer: The Xbox 360 has been outselling PlayStation 3 in Japan in recent weeks. Why do think that is? What's finally made that happen?
John Schappert: First and foremost, it's great content. That's the backbone of our system and what drives people to pick it up. We've got great games - Tales of Vesperia and Infinite Undiscovery are two locally-made Japanese RPGs exclusive to Xbox 360. I think that's a big driver of sales. People that own last-generation consoles are saying, 'Now there's a reason for me to upgrade.'
Secondly it's our great price point. We've got the most attractive price point of all the next-gen consoles; worldwide, we're less than USD 200. I think those two things combined have given us great success.
Roundtable: One of the arguments I've heard this week is that Microsoft hasn't committed; you've put an office here, but everything has to go back via Seattle. What are your plans for making that leap - having an office here and giving it autonomy?
John Schappert: I have not heard that complaint, and I've spent a lot of time this week with our partners. I think our Japanese office has done incredible work. The success we're seeing right now is because of the great work this team has done. I'd say they do it in conjunction with our offices, and this office - just like all of our regional offices - is managed for the local market.
New Xbox Experience will launch on 19th November.
The message I've heard from many of our publishers is that they are very happy with our success in Japan. They're most excited about our success globally helping them to achieve success globally.
Roundtable: Turning to Xbox Live, would you use Live in the same breath as Facebook and other social networking services?
John Schappert: I certainly think we're much closer and more akin to that than another online service that just focuses on multiplayer gaming. We see it as the largest social network in the living room. A lot of the additions we've made with the New Xbox Live Experience are around socialising with your friends, going beyond just playing games with them. You can join a party together, you can go from experience to experience together, you can share photos, watch movies...
Xbox Live really does take a console which started life as a games machine and turn it into an entertainment hub. The New Xbox Experience turns the Xbox into a socially connected place where you and your friends get to live.
Roundtable: Why not just let gamers play games?
John Schappert: Because you still can. To me, social networking is about us getting together and playing games, having conversations, sharing photos, sitting on virtual couches... I think people have friends all over the world now, and Xbox 360 helps keep them connected.
The number of messages that are sent daily on Xbox Live is in the tens of millions. It's just amazing. People game together, that's how it started, but there are an awful lot of people who get home, start up their Xbox and they're not playing a game, they're chatting.
In no way are we abandoning gaming. That's the fundamental that makes all of this a possibility. But I think gamers are entertainment consumers, and want to do more than just play games and get disconnected from their party. They want to stay together and be social. The average Xbox user has friends in the double digits.
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Negotiator
09/10/08 @ 12:32
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MS have innovated in the online aspect more than any other console company, as Schappert explains at the end, and also shuts Ellie up.
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The Bodybuilder
09/10/08 @ 12:32
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Other than the "re-invented fps for consoles" comment, everything else is pretty fair.
Ofcourse, the raving fanaticism that is gaming and gamers won't see it that way, so I expect a 200+ cry from many gamers. |
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I think the greatest "innovation" with the coming of the new experience is going to be Primetime. It has the potential to be massive and a true system seller for those that enjoy watching quiz shows and are more than happy to sit texting and phoning for those TV competitions. Avatars are also essential for it to make an impact.
However, as nothing like that has ever been tried in the console space before, it also has the potential to crash and burn spectacularly. ;) |
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Doctor_What
09/10/08 @ 12:41
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Hello again Nick. Could you stop the fanboy trolling please? Thanks.
John Shappert needs to learn some maths or economics: "worldwide, we're less than USD 200". Not in the UK. So worldwide, except where it's not? Snappy John, very snappy. He's very defensive about innovation isn't he? Surely the better answer would have been 'when we see things that we think work well, we make them work better and integrate them into our wider framework', rather than 'we did all this stuff first (on consoles)'. MS have done a decent (although still not amazing) job of pulling many threads together into one fabric. It's better than Sony's service, but it's also infinitely more expensive. Still, considering the amount of crap that people in his position usually spout in interviews, that wasn't too bad. |
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GamesConnoisseur
09/10/08 @ 12:52
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I m still stratching my head regarding X360 outselling PS3, how long would that continue?
I do get a feeling that PS3 will regain ground but still an indication that Sony is not so loved, especially at the higher price point compared to the rival consoles (Yen value of PS3 is still pretty reasonable cheap in the currency exchange rate). FFXIII is only available for PS3 in Japan and that would make a difference if nothing else, but bet that Sony would have expected PS3 be selling multiple times of X360 by now (considering that both Xbox and X360 are not ever going to be critical mass in Japan) and would be embarrasingly satisifed to be just ahead by a percentage? |
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Doctor_What
09/10/08 @ 12:53
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@ anomagnus: I liked Quake 3, Half-Life, and Deus Ex on the PS2. They're some of the top FPS titles though they weren't console exclusive. It's too much of a stretch for him to dismiss Golden Eye. The PS2 and Dreamcast could also go online for games. I could've sworn someone else did wireless controllers too. Copying harddrives from PCs was hardly a giant leap in console innovation... Which doesn't really leave a lot on his list of 'true' innovation but, as I said before, they've done a decent job of pulling it altogether. I thought my time on Xbox Live was okay, but not so superior that I wanted to pay for it compared to the free service from Sony. That's just how I felt, some people seem to think it's amazing though, so each to their own.
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@anomagnus
You can't really say he's got a point "apart from". When talking about innovation. As mentioned Golden Eye led the way as did the Wavebird. On those two points. As for the under $200. They are here when you take tax out of the equation - which is the only way to sensibly compare prices across the globe. |
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ShakaCarnage
09/10/08 @ 13:18
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John Schappert taking over from the 'too American and too cocky' Don Mattrick? INCONCEIVABLE!
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Britesparc
09/10/08 @ 13:25
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Okay, so there was GoldenEye, but I still think there's an argument that FPS=PC up until Halo. It's debatable, but in Schap's defence, he admits that himself.
Wireless controllers is a little fuzzier; yeah, MS was the first to offer them as standard (more or less), but if PS3 or Wii had released before 360, I still think they'd have had them. Overall, that was a surprisingly good interview for a PR dude :-) |
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"Nintendo did wireless controllers first with the wavebird, but admittedly they didn't have rumble. And that's the decent wireless stuff. "
What he means is that the 360 was the first console to launch with wireless controllers as standard. I've also never seen a wavebird as standard controller in the package of the ngc but that may just be a regional thing. Apart from the things he mentions, they also introduced the concept of worldwide distribution. Worldwide launch. Worldwide most games are released simultaneous, especially the big hitters. This imo, has been the best improvement for gamers in Europe in a long time. |
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Doctor_What
09/10/08 @ 13:34
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@ Widge: I loved Black and had far more fun on that than Halo, but it doesn't have the mass appeal that Halo had. Very much a personal taste thing.
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Vice.Destroyer
09/10/08 @ 13:36
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'The average Xbox user has friends in the double digits.'
this statement is amazing My eyebrow raised as well, especially considering there is a 100 friends limit on your friends list. The only ridiculous thing said in the whole interview, so I'll let him off. |
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TheWretched
09/10/08 @ 13:55
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Your pioneering is all n well, but EVERYTHING you said was there in one form or another already... You just made it a wee bit better (same with Windows... until the bog that calls itself Vista came along).
Achievements are ... well new, but nothing that I'd say is REALLY needed. And the rest is actually NOTHING new. And where are Avatars a logical extension? They are a sad ripoff and nothing else. And all of your so called innovation has nothing to do (except multiplayer, which I find is more often a drag than not, and that has been on PCs ever since MUD came along) with playing games per se. And that is what a console is about, foremost. Harddrives in consoles is very nice (especially to the non-gamer^^) but what advantage did it give you in terms of Xbox vs. PS2? |
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Innovation is not simply the core ideas but also about how it is implemented and hangs together. That's what makes things like Live and LBP innovative when arguably the core ideas may have been done before. Making things better & more accessible is innovative if the end user experience is different because of it.
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Xerxes has beat me to it, but yeah I had an IR wireless controller for my Amiga. Worked OK and I did feel like a popstar playing games from my bed though back in the day a second TV was about 14 inches and you could see the square root of fuck all, but it was OK.
I think X-box do follow a bit, they bought Rare, they try and just pay loads of wedge to get the best developers from other systems to build for them, and their new avatars are shameless Mii ripoffs. But then anything good gets robbed, rumble features, analogue sticks, analogue triggers. Everything has to start somewhere, and I for one think their Live service is genius, certainly compared to the thieving ballache that is the Wii (no PS3 so I'll not gob off, only to say that even though Live costs I'm happy to pay for it). There's a bit of me that thinks Microsoft is an evil big money making machine that ponces ideas in a shameless quest for world domination, and there's the other bit that just quite likes his X-box and doesn't give a toss where the ideas started.
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most recently on 09/10/08 @ 15:12
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farticusmaximus
09/10/08 @ 14:15
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@DrDamn
"Eyetoy" Eyetoy has changed nothing at all. It's a best-left-forgotten toy. "Singstar" Not really changed consoles as a whole, it was simply a popular game. "making it a hell of a lot more acceptable to have a games console in your living room..." That's not an innovation, that's just selling a lot of consoles. |
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quote: The innovation criticism is almost ironic to me. You've got the Xbox, which is the console that pioneered hard drives, broadband gaming, online gaming, Achievements and gamercards. It's the console that arguably pioneered first-person shooters in your living room, wireless controllers... I could go on.
I think we've earned our chops in terms of innovation. The games division has some brilliant people who have done amazing things, and who have shaped the industry forever. I think we've done a great job of innovating and we continue to lead. /Quote - A HDD add-on was first introduced my the PS2 in Japan way before the XBOX was released. - Broadband gaming?....please. I was broadband gaming on the PC effing years before XBOX. - First person shooters in the living room. Like Goldeneye then, yeah? - wireless controllers? Nintendo had them years ago. Acheivements and GamerCards are good, but hardly innovative. MS don't know how to innovate. Period. Never have and never will.
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most recently on 09/10/08 @ 15:28
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"Your pioneering is all n well, but EVERYTHING you said was there in one form or another already... You just made it a wee bit better (same with Windows... until the bog that calls itself Vista came along). "
Following that line, neither did nintendo or sony. Sony wasn't the first to use disc based media. Nintendo wasn't the first to use things like waggle or avatars. You can basically tear any innovation EVER MADE on consoles apart. What a silly statement. People say that ms copies mii's but mii's on the other hand are just copies themselves. here you can find one from ms i.e. that was launched years before the wii. The ms doesn't innovate but nintendo/sony do is just ridiculous beyond words.
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most recently on 09/10/08 @ 16:22
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guys, you can throw out comments all you like, but 3 or four decent FPS's before the xbox arrived is basically fuck all
his point is, and you can only avoid it if your actually going out of your way to do it, is that the XBOX brought everything togeather yes, there were FPS's before halo, but they were rare, the console market was NOT known for them, and they were seen as sole purview of the PC gaming market his talk on the hardware side of things is equally relevant. He's not saying they invented hardrives, but sure as fuck, they made them ubiquitous in the console market, as for the smart ass talking about broadband gaming, again, yes it was available on the PC, but internet gaming in the console market was fucking awful until the xbox 360 as much as many of you cannot accept it, microsoft brought it all togeather for the first time. In that regard they truly did innovate. They took everything the pc did, and put it in a console. that was their innovation. On there second attempt, compared to the three consoles sony has had, plus an extra 13 years in the market, they have utterly kicked the shit out of them PS3 might win in the long run, but the point being, it should never have been a competition but god forbid that MS might EVER do something positive, lets all break out the sony flags and pretend that gaming was created by sony, and only sony can innovate yea sony, thank you for your over priced, feature reduced platform in europe, thank you for shitty conversions, and shit hardware, thanks for shoving your dick down my ass and telling me how loyal i am while you burst my ass hole fucking grow up, MS made mistakes, but i'd be fucking curious to see the state of the console market right now without them |
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MS are the innovators of console online, yeah yeah, dreamcast, but MS brought it to the masses, Headset and microphone is default which paves the way for better communication (OR WORSE). Again same with wireless(default). Again with 20gb HD, default (which was quite large in 2002). Gamercards and achievemnets are a first.
The argument is not who does something first but who delivers it to the mainstream first as standard. But to be fair Sony and Nintendo have given us major innovations too. If they all add a bit and take a bit what's the problem with that. |
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@Farticus
Eyetoy and Singstar sold games to people who didn't buy games by presenting them in a way which worked for them. That was innovative. Others have followed (see 360 camera and Lips). They sold consoles off the back of both. > "making it a hell of a lot more acceptable to have a games console in your living room..." > That's not an innovation, that's just selling a lot of consoles. How they went about it was - selling a lot of consoles was the result of the approach. Similar to Nintendo this gen they saw a big market beyond the gaming nerds and went after it by doing things differently. Release games with slick design and licensed music, putting games consoles in night clubs. The PS brand became a much more acceptable name to people over Sega and Nintendo which were largely seen as toys. It's the approach which was innovative and we wouldn't have the same gaming market we see today without what they did. |
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@anomagnus
"but god forbid that MS might EVER do something positive, lets all break out the sony flags and pretend that gaming was created by sony, and only sony can innovate" I agree with your main point that MS have brought a lot of things together and that is innovative. I'm not sure where the Sony point comes in cos I can't see anyone saying that. Each of the main manufacturers have innovated, either with more tangible obvious points such as the Wiimote or with the less obvious things like the approach and overall package. What's being argued over are a couple of specific points - like wireless and FPS's. They are arguable but I think most would agree there was something successful there first. There are aspects of these points he made which are valid though. Elements of Halo and standardisation of wireless controllers I would count as innovations. |
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HardCoreGamer999
09/10/08 @ 15:40
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@Dr Damm
MS was the first to launch next-gen console with all the elements such as wireless controllers therfore they are innovative It's not the invention y a manufacture that counts but the risk to put it on market that makes it an innovation
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 09/10/08 @ 16:41
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