Peter Moore rocking out on Guitar Hero II at a February 2007 Xbox sales and marketing meeting
In Part III of our four-part Q&A with Microsoft entertainment and devices corporate vice president Peter Moore, he explained why, despite Rare's inability to regain its former sales dominance,
the U.K. studio was still essential to Microsoft's ambitions to broaden
its audience beyond shooter fans. In the final part of our interview,
Moore turns his attention to the competition among Xbox 360, PS3 and
Wii. (Once again, as we've noted previously, this interview was
conducted in January of 2007, before the December 2006 sales figures
were available.) But we also get him talking about the prospects of
Media Center for Windows Vista and the then-recent removal of Super Columbine Massacre RPG! from competition at the Slamdance Film Festival.
Sony's going to announce that they've shipped a million units
of Playstation 3 in North America. [Sony Computer Entertainment
America CEO] Jack Tretton was very clear with me that that did not mean
that half a million just came off of a factory floor in Guangzhou; that
these were units that were pretty much on store shelves--
Okay. Then that's sold, not shipped.
No, that's shipped.
Okay.
That's shipped. The implication is that their production kinks are largely worked out.
Sony officially stated that on Tuesday back in Tokyo, if I recall,
that "Our production problems are behind us." I can't remember the
gentleman's name, but "Our production problems are behind us, and we
will meet our six million unit mark on March 31st." Okay.
So assuming they're through the difficult period, let's back up a
little bit. Now that all three consoles are in the market, let's take
Sony first. What, if anything, do you need to do specifically to
counter them for 2007?
Well, I still think it's all about the games. Many of us get
distracted with other things, but 2007 is all going to be about the
games. It's going to be about unique experiences, to your point, what
is going to be truly next-generational. I think Microsoft Game Studios
plays a huge role in 2007. I think the ability for us to be able to
effectively deploy some of our exclusives with third parties, whether
it's BioShock or the next Splinter Cell, is going to be important. But in a year where we're delivering Crackdown, Forza 2, Shadowrun, Mass Effect, Too Human and a little thing called Halo 3, we're feeling pretty good about where we're at in first party. And then with titles like Alan Wake, Fable 2
on the horizon as well, when you roll all of that together, we need to
continue to deliver reasons for people to buy our console over somebody
else's. I mean, it's as simple as that.
You read the boards as much if not more than I do. One of the things
that Sony has to do is start delivering a slate of content that's both
exclusive and truly next-generational. The only thing that gets into
that conversation right now is Resistance: Fall of Man.
I think they've got to build upon that and build upon that very
quickly. So back to our original conversation: we're feeling good about
where we're at; we've exceeded our number; the ecosystem is looking
very healthy; and we've hit some form of a critical mass with a lot
more good stuff to come.
Once you come out of the holiday, are you projecting to be above
300,000 units a month in 2007, consistently, without a price drop?
