Halo and gears of war are far scare the casual players, said Microsoft

The DICE Summit, Microsoft Game Studios VP corporate Shame Kim placed at the disposal of a conference session, recorded by Gamasutra, in response to many questions surrounding the Xbox business.

One of the biggest blows to Microsoft in 2007 was the loss of Bungie Studios. Kim explained, “People have speculated that we were stifling their creative freedom, but I can tell you that no study had a freer hand in the game of Microsoft Bungie Studios. Creo, in the middle of it, they wanted to return to its independent roots. at the end of the day, you are talking about human beings here. My personal philosophy? You want to work with people who are happy to work with you. “

Apart from Bungie, there are two other houses development to emerge from beneath the umbrella of Microsoft. BioWare been acquired by EA earlier this year, and Bizarre Creations is now with Activision. Kim theft menospreciaron the second part the two developers, said it was only the nature of the industry, and Microsoft still has many major partners on its side.

“We worked with a lot of external development partners - Epic has been tremendous for us. It’s just the nature of the game,” said Kim. “We have five major internal studies. Believe in having a great mixture, and a great commitment to internal development as well … we can not control other publishers.”

The vice president also added that third-party publishers have an incentive to produce content on Xbox 360, due to the excellent game on the platform sales. “The vast majority of software sales will come from third parties,” said Kim. “We do not have the dominant share in our own platform - from third parties. And if one is set on the results of a third major platform titles, we are surpassing other platforms 2:1, 3:1, and so on.”

2007 was undoubtedly the best year yet in the quality of the games for the Xbox 360. It is so good, in fact, that some believe that Microsoft may not agree with him for 2008. Although he made no promises, Kim believes that 2008 will be “very stacked” with the quality of the games, some of which have not yet been announced. Of the titles that have been announced, Kim mentioned specifically Wars Halo, Fable 2 and Alan Wake.

Even with its head start, the Xbox 360 was quickly surpassed in total unit sales of the PlayStation, but Kim said that the sale of hardware is not the only way to measure the success of a platform. “It’s easier to concentrate on the console unit sales,” he continued. “But if one is fixed in consumer spending in the current [console] generation, the Xbox 360 customers spend 45 percent of next gen spending.”

That does not mean that Microsoft is not looking to repeat something that Nintendo was able to do with its current generation hardware capture markets casual. Oddly enough, Kim names Halo and Gears of War as obstacles to that goal.

“When your flagship titles are Halo and Gears of War, most people, of course, a brand attribute mature-rated hardcore to the Xbox platform. Glad that I have Halo and Gears of War, but it becomes more difficult to reach some people, “said Kim. “We have a lot to offer people and we need to do a better job of letting people know. We are trying to reach mass market with Xbox 360, and the production has a long way to go.”

Outside the current platform of the three major console owners, Microsoft is the only one without a solution portable gaming. Are there ever be a portable PC? “Never say never,” Kim replied. “Creating a portable device, as is the launch of a Zune, another launch Xbox 360 … We have a way to go [to compete effectively in the area of music] … Zune is not just about the device, it is also about the service. “

For now, it seems that Kim and the rest of the games division of Microsoft focuses on making the Xbox 360 the overall winner of the generation. “In no way does anyone at Microsoft believe that the race is over,” said Kim. “You have very powerful and formidable contenders in Nintendo and Sony … Subestimar to count on them and they would be a foolish mistake.”