smbius / Member

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E3: Impressions of Microsoft's Conference (a business perspective)

There's quite a bit to see during the conference. From a business perspective it looks like MS has been looking at numbers and coming out with games to address the Singstars, and casual gamers. They also responded to Sony's Home and Nintendo's Miis with the use of cutomizable avators. The nice thing about this is that it still looks accessible and there seems to be nice and easy facelift for the Xbox Live interface. Not bad. As long as it's easy and is compatible with 360 machines who have not had the update, things should be ok.

While we, as gamers, don't see the need to buy games like "Lips" or "Scene it", there's a huge crowd out there that's going to buy into it. Their EyeToy-like games which uses the camera are gimmicky and look difficult for even casual gamers to get into. This will be a huge waste considering that many consumers have seen stuff like this on the PS2.

HD CONTENT

I think Microsoft made a very smart move integrating NetFlix into to their Xbox Live movie downloads. As long as it's in HD, MS can go head-to-head with PS3 and BluRay. God knows how often my family goes out to rent movies. In our area, the selection of Bluray movies are very small. Some movie rental stores don't even have a Bluray section. Currently, the Playstation network sucks at delivering HD content online because there's hardly anything to download. But that's understandable. They're trying to sell BD disks.

I've rented plenty of movies on Live and having Netflix should keep things more current. What's even more smart is Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web. Being able to purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and downloading automatically to your console. Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work. Cool stuff. I know I'd do it. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are pretty much dead. I see a bunch of XBox live downloaders switching to Netflix. Why pay $6 in Xbox Live points to watch an HD movie when you can pay $5 a month from Netflix to download/stream whatever you want as much as you want? Crazy.

INTERACTIVE TV

MS plans to roll out Xbox Live Primetime this Fall, a place where users "can star in their own game shows" particularly 1 vs 100, Deal or No Deal, Big Brother and Fear Factor. I'm not sure if this will interact with the actual shows as they are being aired. If so, this could work. If not, I don't see any consumer attachment to it. There are so many games out there on the web where people are interacting with many players online (i.e. Trivial Pursuit, Jeopardy, etc.)...all for free. If Microsoft is smart, they would've inked a deal to get NBC to encourage viewers to log on Xbox live to play with their live contestants.

EXCLUSIVE VS. NON-EXCLUSIVE GAMES

Fallout 3. Cool. RE5. Nice. Last Remnant for 360 and PC. Sweet. Rock Band 2 will be automatic for me. Final Fantasy 13 on 360? Pretty nuts I'd say. Does Sony get hurt by this? I don't think so. If Sony hadn't won the HD format wars, then I'd be worried for them.

Here's the thing about FF13 going non-exclusive. It's pretty evident that FF13 is going to an expensive game to produce and the only way to break even quickly on those costs is to make the game accessible to as many gamers as possible. Unless the company who owns the platform (Sony/Microsoft) fronts the money for it to stay exclusive. Forget it. Productions costs are through the roof, especially in an economy that we're in right now. That's the main reason. This is not PS2 vs. Xbox anymore. PS3 and 360 have a sizable chunk of owners and there's no lopsided winner in this console race. Until there is, you can expect more things like this to happen.

Have fun with E3 everyone.