Former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer J Allard recently sat down with NowGamer for an interview and revealed some interesting details about the development and promotion of Xbox Live. He said:
“Xbox Live was by no means a slam-dunk–a lot of perseverance was required to get support from the industry and to convince them of the value of a single identity and friends list, unlockable game trials, a unified leaderboard, achievements, required updates to prevent cheating and downloadable content. Today, it’s hard to imagine gaming without these features, but a decade ago, these were very difficult discussions–especially as the new kids on the block.”
The gaming industry is notorious to resist change and this further highlights the problems with console makers other than Microsoft. Other manufacturers are holding firm to physical media right now and delaying the inevitable. Imagine if games cost less like they do on Steam because they’re digital. Imagine being able to have discs you could throw away after installing. It’s a shame the same resistance to change is impeding progress again.
Allard added to his statement and said:
“Beyond Live, remember that Halo was slammed at E3 2000–people didn’t think it was fun and thought it would never work on a console. We got hammered for not having a modem and committing to broadband and insisting on the importance of voice. Generally speaking, the industry didn’t have faith in mass storage, downloadable content or digital distribution. Concepts like trial versions of titles and non-retail titles like Xbox Arcade were met with resistance.”
It’s surprising that industry veterans said that Halo wouldn’t work. It’s also shocking how mass storage and digital distribution met with so much opposition. We still see resistance to digital distribution today even though it would benefit publishers and gamers.
Lastly, Allard said:
“Unified Gamertags and Friends, Achievements and user-generated content seemed like outrageous asks of publishers and developers. A decade later, FPS is probably the biggest category in console gaming, everyone has broadband, almost every title has downloadable content, all game platforms have achievements, leaderboards and friendslists and the massively successful Minecraft is about user-generated content at its core. Had we not persevered through the difficult discussions, many of these aspects of gaming would likely have played out much more slowly, and Xbox would not have become the brand that it grew into.”
Microsoft has always been an innovator and instead of focusing on the backward policies of its competitors in the gaming space, the company should take a stand. Just like they innovated when establishing Xbox Live, they should innovate in the console space. Lowering the price of digital AAA games to around $39.99 like countless Steam sales is the key to success. I know that Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3 were on sale for that price for a long time. Why can’t console gamers get Fallout 4 or Just Cause 3 for $39.99?
When users see that the prices are lower or the prices of many games they want are lower, they will adopt the model. Microsoft will be bashed at first but it’s necessary for the good of the industry. Nintendo and Sony is not in the financial position to do that. Microsoft has to be the market leader again. Consumers will come around because price is an incredibly important factor when it comes to console gaming.
Source: Examiner
Asher is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 1110 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: wrote over 1,100 ICXM pieces on Xbox news, hardware reviews, and platform commentary before joining Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017.