In a new interview with British consumer website CVG, Microsoft Game Studios head Shane Kim has claimed that the Xbox 360 will enjoy a lifespan of at least seven years. His comments came after being asked whether all three games in the Too Human trilogy – which is not expected to be completed for seven years - would all be released on the Xbox 360.
“We said from the beginning that we expect the Xbox 360 to have a long tail,” said Kim. “Clearly we didn't do that with the original Xbox, which was a strategic decision we made. Admittedly, we don't have any experience doing this, but we're pretty confident 360 will have a long tail.”
Asked how this longer lifespan would cope with complaints of a lack of hard drive as standard and the use of only a standard DVD drive Kim answered: “You're going to continue to see technical innovation, it might be additional capabilities to the current format - but honestly we haven't made those kind of decisions yet.”
“As far as technical limitations? We're not seeing those. I think there's the potential for more multi-disc titles, we've already shipped a few of those already. But I don't this is so drastic that people will start saying that Microsoft made a mistake not using Blu-ray,” he added.
When asked about rumors of a Wii style motion sensing controller Kim chose not to avoid the issue, saying: ”We're going to continue to look at new ways we can introduce different things - the third parties are doing this as well with the music controllers. So there's opportunities for us there too. We're an R and D company at heart.”
When pressed on the issue Kim added, “You have to be careful about doing the me too thing. But what's interesting is that you have a lot of third parties that are trying to rush to the Wii phenomenon, but if you look at the data, the vast majority of software that has sold on Wii has come from Nintendo. So it's not turned out to be a great third party eco-system. “
“So it could work if you had something that had a great third party eco-system. Having said that, our unique perspective is going to be online oriented for better or worse. In the same way that Sony is Blu-ray and Nintendo is the motion-control, our thing is online. And each of these has strengths and weaknesses in different markets of the world. Whatever we do has to take advantage of our unique capabilities,” he said.
Well I think a longer lifespan is pretty much necessary if you want your hardware to trigger a profit, otherwise its a constant money hemorrhage resulting from rapidly continual user base installation.
I must say, I do like the fact that he dodged the "Wii too" rumor instead of shooting it down. I know its their policy not to comment on rumors but I'm gonna go ahead and take this as confirmation that the rumor holds at least some water.
When pressed on the issue Kim added, “You have to be careful about doing the me too thing. But what's interesting is that you have a lot of third parties that are trying to rush to the Wii phenomenon, but if you look at the data, the vast majority of software that has sold on Wii has come from Nintendo. So it's not turned out to be a great third party eco-system. “
Two reasons that this: "it's not turned out to be a great third party eco-system." is one of the stupidest thing's I've seen come from a studio head's mouth (errr, keyboard?)
1) "third parties RUSH to the Wii phenomenon".
There's little thought (or very little experience) in what many of these third parties are doing, so they shoot themselves in the foot by misusing the new control possibilities at the starting line. This is a problem with those developers though, not with the Wii hardware.
Which leads to...
2) "the vast majority of software that has sold on Wii has come from Nintendo".
Not surprising. Nintendo has a long history of making awesome games. so... DUH.
I must say, I do like the fact that he dodged the "Wii too" rumor instead of shooting it down. I know its their policy not to comment on rumors but I'm gonna go ahead and take this as confirmation that the rumor holds at least some water.
Two reasons that this: "it's not turned out to be a great third party eco-system." is one of the stupidest thing's I've seen come from a studio head's mouth (errr, keyboard?)
1) "third parties RUSH to the Wii phenomenon".
There's little thought (or very little experience) in what many of these third parties are doing, so they shoot themselves in the foot by misusing the new control possibilities at the starting line. This is a problem with those developers though, not with the Wii hardware.
Which leads to...
2) "the vast majority of software that has sold on Wii has come from Nintendo".
Not surprising. Nintendo has a long history of making awesome games. so... DUH.
Welcome to the games industry, Mr. Kim.