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XBox (Games)

The Microsoft Keynote In Depth 56

Posted by Zonk from the he-was-very-upbeat dept.
The Microsoft Keynote address today was a ra-ra session, trying to get people excited about the future of games (the Microsoft way). Which, of course, is not to say that it wasn't interesting. For the word straight from the mount, the sound and video is available on the Xbox site. Many sites have their impressions of the keynote, including Joystiq, GamesIndustry.biz, and Gamemethod. Read on if you'd like my thoughts on Microsoft's vision of the future.
* The thrust of Allard's talk was the future of gaming as seen through Microsoft's eyes, a vision he referred to as "The HD Living Room". In this future living room, High Def video and audio would combine with immersive connectivity and individualization to produce a new experience for gamers. This experience, he argued, would drawn in new gamers to the fold as the marketplace ages. Someday we would be looking at the first game to sell 20 million units.

* Microsoft, of course, is going to usher in this new age. Take what you will from that part of the message, but his overall vision was compelling. Micropayments in the 2.0 version of Xbox live will allow for content sellable to end-users for very small amounts, seamlessly executed from the users end and not even a consideration on the designer's end. Essentially, all the designer would have to do is decide what assets were available for sale and what price as the the Live 2.0 system handles the rest.

* Microsoft's role as a developer's aid behind the scenes seemed to be his secondary talking point. XNA Studio was mentioned again, and Allard discussed a future point where design teams are much larger and completely integrated across the globe. The most barbed commentary came when he was discussing the Xbox Next system, and how the system's design was intended to be as easy to develop on as possible while still being powerful and balanced. He referred to a "Science Fair Approach" to console design where these were not the objectives, probably referring to Nintendo's Revolution system.

* The crunchy parts of the talk included details about the next Live system, where players will have online "gamer cards", personalized baseball cards showing their stats and accomplishments while playing Live games. The ability to customize the music experience for every Xbox game was mentioned (ala Burnout 3 and some other titles), as was a ubiquitous and standardized user interface for all games that use the Live service. In many ways it sounds as if Live 2.0 will be taking many cues from Bungie's work on Halo 2. The extendable XML and RSS technology used in the game was mentioned during a video presentation in the talk.

The thinly veiled slam against Nintendo was the low point of the talk, which overall kept to an upbeat and high minded ideal. Ignoring the part where Microsoft is the backbone of game development for a moment, their ideas have definite merit. As a MMOG player in particular, the discussion of a need for commonality in UI choices seemed on target. His pithy statement "Bruce Lee, not Brute Force" seems a laudable goal for design choices, and a future where gaming is as ubiquitous and as popular as movies or television is certainly not one I would be sad to see.

* While selling us on his vision, Allard managed to do a little bit of pure selling as well. But really, who can blame him? Microsoft Game Studios is in an excellent position right now, the next Xbox console is due out this year, and they have announced an intention as a company to specifically support game development from a developer's perspective. If there's anything that the folks in Redmond are talented at it's combining high minded ideas with marketing, and the Wednesday Keynote was very effective in combined both.

Update: 03/10 17:29 GMT by Z :Added back in the paragraph I managed to delete.
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The Microsoft Keynote In Depth More

The Microsoft Keynote In Depth

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  • Wha? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hollismb ( 817357 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @12:14PM (#11900520) Homepage

    Why the submitter didn't actually mention the cool parts of the presentation is beyond me.

    In terms of the new XBox Live stuff, the most interesting parts are in reference to the Gamer Cards and Costom Playlists, which are to be available across ALL games, and not just some feature a sassy developer tacked on. Being able to compare yourself directly against another player, even across games, check someone's stats across all games, which games they own and play, which on'es they're good at, and how much time they spend playing are all cool features.

    Then, add on top of that the fact that you'll be able to manage all your music from within any game, creating custom playlists and whatnot, and you've got the cool things that the Xbox does now taken up quite a few notches.

    • Re:Wha? (Score:1, Troll)

      by the_skywise ( 189793 )
      You mean to say they're going to do market tracking on everything we say or do on the box?

      But it's notinvasive, it's KEWL!
      • Yeah. When you think about it (and look at the screenshots) it's pretty much lke having iTunes for online gaming and game content, in terms of the stats it tracks.
    • As someone who follows video games but is not an XBox fanboy, I totally disagree. Zonks writeup is interesting, and I could give a rats ass about gamer cards and custom playlists.
    • It sounds like you were at the presentation (or at least have read a lot about it) so what I'm wondering was if there was any mention about how the music will get on the Xbox 2? It seems like a pretty solid rumor that the base model of Xbox 2 will not have a hard drive...so will it be able to access the music on my PC?
  • than Bill Gates at CES.

  • The unsaid (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @12:45PM (#11901021) Journal
    To me the most interesting part wasn't what he said, but the images. The game mostly used, Forza Motorsport, is a not yet released xbox game. EBgames.com has it to be released in May on xbox. They also show awards from Halo 2 in the gamer card. Were these games published by Microsoft with features that could be used in their next console? Are we seeing backwards compatibility here? Maybe Microsoft is going to publish versions of these games for their next console as well and thats what we are seeing? I'm actually stoked about going to E3 for the first time in about 5 years. Woot.
    • My guess is that they used those games instead of 'Next Gen' ones since they haven't actually announced what any of the next generation Xbox game will be.
  • Something I find interesting is how Allard took quite a few shots at Sony's hardware but didn't try to make fun of Nintendo's "we'll change gaming instead of graphics" talk. He even went as far as claiming that HD will have an impact on gameplay (that'd be?) as if he wanted to say "Well, yes, we're all about the graphics but look! We have gameplay, too!". Perhaps he wanted to preempt Iwata who'll speak tomorrow and will definitely take some shots at Microsoft's development goals (aka better graphics) and ti
  • Obviously the poster is confused, because it was pretty clear to everyone in the room that Allard was referring to Sony when he talked about the 'science fair' approach to platform design. He was contrasting Sony's approach, which he contends is all about theoretically cool hardware that might not be practically usable (i.e. the Cell), versus the MS approach which he contends is more balanced and developer-centric.

    In particular, his line about "the only emotion that will evoke is frustration", when referri

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