wraggster
November 1st, 2007, 18:35
Over the past few months Siren, who currently works at www.emaglive.com, has been speaking to Vgchartz about the industry in general, and how it is progressing. Earlier, I interviewed him about his time with Microsoft from 2000 to 2005.
* thesource (8:02:55 PM): How was the knowledge of the Xbox project received by your co-workers in the division? What was the company assessment of Sega, Sony and Nintendo in those days...and how did it evolve during your tenure?
* siren (8:03:42 PM): That's a fun one (and a few questions there). Let's see if I can cover it all.
For starters, a lot of people did not have confidence in the project as presented. Being in Windows it felt a lot like they were taking a path that was not the same as how Microsoft approaches business relating to software.
A lot of people thought they should make a software platform for games and then pitch that and get the other companies to adopt it. Little did people know at the time that this was exactly what the team had originally tried before being rejected by just about everyone but Sega (including Intel, Dell, HP, and others not normally associated with gaming).
Beyond that, when we did learn what they were doing, a lot of people in the Digital Media Organization had a certain level of animosity for the Xbox org, this was in part due to Xbox not using a lot of DX technologies like DShow, even though the product code name was "DirectX Box"
Around the time of CES 2001, Microsoft held an internal only show to announce the Xbox to employees over in Building 33, their conference center. So many people on campus attended the event that they had to open up over 50% of the entire conference center and live-rebroadcast the show into other rooms on the projectors. It was an amazing site to see (and I had the pleasure of winning a Japanese Xbox branded backpack there as an added bonus).
That changed a lot of opinions about the team. Suddenly people everyone in Microsoft were excited about Xbox and believed in the team and their vision
* thesource (8:27:22 PM): Did Microsoft feel like it met its goals with the original Xbox? If not, what was the goal of Xbox 360 in terms of market share (i.e. finding a niche in Japan, passing say N64/Genesis sales of ~30 million)
* siren (8:28:10 PM): Well, the first goal failed miserably. Make money.
While losses people discuss in forums are greatly inflated (Xbox wasn't the only one losing Billions in the Home and Entertainment division), they lost a lot. They wanted to at a minimum break even.
As far as market share, they got to about where they wanted to be in the US. A little low in Europe and definitely off in Japan. Japan was a disaster to say the least
They were really hoping to get about Gamecube level of success in Japan, but were hampered by a whole slew of critical errors. With the 360, one of the main goals is to get Japan up to a couple million sold over the life and Europe up around original Xbox sales. They also want to grow the US sales to be #1 in the territory.
* thesource (8:31:51 PM): Well that sounds reasonable, but given the pricing it seems money was more of a concern this generation...
* siren (8:32:08 PM): Early on I heard numbers like 60 Million 360's sold over life being a target.
Definitely money is a concern. They want to make back pretty much everything they lost last generation and then some if possible
They realize that even with 60 Million systems, they would stand to make a good $1 Billion a quarter off the market late in its life if the business is built correctly
http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=608
* thesource (8:02:55 PM): How was the knowledge of the Xbox project received by your co-workers in the division? What was the company assessment of Sega, Sony and Nintendo in those days...and how did it evolve during your tenure?
* siren (8:03:42 PM): That's a fun one (and a few questions there). Let's see if I can cover it all.
For starters, a lot of people did not have confidence in the project as presented. Being in Windows it felt a lot like they were taking a path that was not the same as how Microsoft approaches business relating to software.
A lot of people thought they should make a software platform for games and then pitch that and get the other companies to adopt it. Little did people know at the time that this was exactly what the team had originally tried before being rejected by just about everyone but Sega (including Intel, Dell, HP, and others not normally associated with gaming).
Beyond that, when we did learn what they were doing, a lot of people in the Digital Media Organization had a certain level of animosity for the Xbox org, this was in part due to Xbox not using a lot of DX technologies like DShow, even though the product code name was "DirectX Box"
Around the time of CES 2001, Microsoft held an internal only show to announce the Xbox to employees over in Building 33, their conference center. So many people on campus attended the event that they had to open up over 50% of the entire conference center and live-rebroadcast the show into other rooms on the projectors. It was an amazing site to see (and I had the pleasure of winning a Japanese Xbox branded backpack there as an added bonus).
That changed a lot of opinions about the team. Suddenly people everyone in Microsoft were excited about Xbox and believed in the team and their vision
* thesource (8:27:22 PM): Did Microsoft feel like it met its goals with the original Xbox? If not, what was the goal of Xbox 360 in terms of market share (i.e. finding a niche in Japan, passing say N64/Genesis sales of ~30 million)
* siren (8:28:10 PM): Well, the first goal failed miserably. Make money.
While losses people discuss in forums are greatly inflated (Xbox wasn't the only one losing Billions in the Home and Entertainment division), they lost a lot. They wanted to at a minimum break even.
As far as market share, they got to about where they wanted to be in the US. A little low in Europe and definitely off in Japan. Japan was a disaster to say the least
They were really hoping to get about Gamecube level of success in Japan, but were hampered by a whole slew of critical errors. With the 360, one of the main goals is to get Japan up to a couple million sold over the life and Europe up around original Xbox sales. They also want to grow the US sales to be #1 in the territory.
* thesource (8:31:51 PM): Well that sounds reasonable, but given the pricing it seems money was more of a concern this generation...
* siren (8:32:08 PM): Early on I heard numbers like 60 Million 360's sold over life being a target.
Definitely money is a concern. They want to make back pretty much everything they lost last generation and then some if possible
They realize that even with 60 Million systems, they would stand to make a good $1 Billion a quarter off the market late in its life if the business is built correctly
http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=608