Robbie Bach Sees Big Year for Xbox 360

Xbox boss talks about the health of Microsoft's console and Master Chief too.

The Xbox 360 has a one-year head start on the PlayStation 3 and the Wii, and Microsoft is confident that it's making the best use of that time. So says Robbie Bach, a vice president at the company, speaking recently about the health of the Xbox.

"I think this is going to be a good holiday for the video game space," Bach told the San Jose Mercury News. "We have an opportunity to benefit from that dramatically. Our goal is to get to 10 million and we think we're going to be able to do that."

That's only the start though. Microsoft has spoken in the past about the 10-million-shipped mark as a crucial one, but success in the long term comes down to three key features: content, price, and online.

No one doubts that Microsoft knows how to make a success of taking consoles online. Gears of War is one of the big drivers of Xbox Live this year. The company said earlier this year that more than half of all Xbox 360 owners had taken their consoles online. The release of Epic's new shooter has spurred that on further, with Reuters reporting that paid subscriptions to the Xbox Live Gold service have gone up by 50 per cent.

Price is another big issue for Microsoft. With the Xbox 360 now more than a year old, a lot of people are wondering when the price is going to come down. But, as Bach explains, both models of the console already undercut even Sony's cheapest PlayStation 3 model, so the company isn't rushing. Price cuts are inevitable, but the timing's the thing. Bach admits that it's "a hard problem".

And what about those rumours of a successor to the Xbox 360? Microsoft's Chris Lewis told Kikizo recently that work is already thinking about the next console, and Bach told the Mercury News that "the engineering team is always thinking about the future." That said, it's clear that Microsoft is firmly focussed on the present, which in this case means getting the price of making the Xbox 360 down.

Keeping both eyes on the present, incidentally, is one of the reasons why, when J Allard was done with bringing the Xbox 360 to life, he went off to work on Microsoft's new portable player, the Zune, rather than on the fabled portable Xbox. Bach is adamant that a key part of the Xbox 360's immediate success lies in not disturbing the team as they push the Xbox 360 through its most important Christmas season yet.

So much for this Christmas. Next year, however, the Microsoft world will be focussed on Master Chief and the closing chapter in the Halo trilogy. There were plans for a movie, backed by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, but when Universal and Fox balked at the idea of green director Neill Blomkamp taking the reins - and the enormous budget - of the flick, Microsoft decided to put it on hold.

Bach hints that this is not the last we'll hear about this. Next year Halo will be hotter than ever, and Microsoft will be debuting a CG-based commercial later this year.

"Until we are confident a good movie will be produced, we'll keep looking," Back said. "It's not like the idea is going to go away."

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo