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| XCN: Exclusive Interview with Peter Moore | // article | ||
| XCN: First question, an easy question; Can you please explain to our readers your role at Microsoft? Peter Moore: (smiles) That might not be as easy as you think! So my title is corporate vice president of worldwide marketing/publishing. I'm responsible for six distinctive businesses. So Microsoft Game Studios reports to me so all first party games development, Rare, Bungie etc. Third party relations, so the relationship with EA, Activision, Ubisoft etc, so third party relations reports to me. Worldwide marketing; I'm the head of world wide marketing as well so all marketing of the platform reports to me. PR, Michael's organisation reports to me. We keep PR separately because so much of what we do in PR is only marketing or interpret corporate only. Japan, I am responsible for Japan as a stand alone business for home and entertainment and the general manager Oyama San reports directly to me. And then an interesting little business that were looking at called new media franchise development senior executive Kevin Brown reports to me; and that's about how do we leverage Halo into movie space. How do we build our licence business of our intellectual property, strategy guides, action figures. And then in the future how do we look at advertising as part of the games and Xbox Live or what have you. So futuristic views on what we think the business is going to look like a year from now 2 years from now 3 years from now. So in nutshell- head of worldwide marketing and publishing. XCN: In your opinion what does Microsoft need to do to be successful in Japan? Peter Moore: Well, I think that you know, we've been through a tough period here and we've learnt a lot of lessons. The simple lessons were to get the industrial design right, get the games right, get the marketing right and perhaps most importantly build a relationship that is deep and sustaining with the publishers here. I think we've done that in fact I know we've done that. The ability now for us to say that every major publisher is developing for Xbox 360 it's for me most certainly a very proud moment and certainly the team here in Japan should be very proud. If you'd have said two years ago that people like Square Enix would be stood shoulder to shoulder with us, Capcom, Namco, Konami, Bandai, Sega would all be developing multiple titles. I think people would have scoffed. And I think that our ability to have a team on the ground that's been able to build our relationships and build what we call this global ecosystem. All of the companies I have mentioned are already making very good money on Xbox- maybe not necessarily here in Japan but certainly around the world and they take a global view not just a domestic Japanese view about the business, so its important that were successful here in Japan. I want them to be able to walk out of their front door or down the street to Akihabara and see Xbox as a powerful competitor challenging hard in this business and that's what were going to be. If you were in the press conference yesterday and Robbie's keynote today or on the show floor, I think you sense a real optimism despite the scepticism that people have that an American company coming over here doesn't do Hardware, not really into entertainment, all the things that people say will never be successful; but when you look at what we've done in two and a half years short years, its pretty proud for us. Today and Yesterday walking on the booth this afternoon as I said I did some TV . And I actually couldn't get on the booth! Two years ago you could roll a bowling ball down there and not hit anybody. I had to come around the side and go in the lifestyle area there on the couch and do a TV interview because I could not get through the booth. So very proud where we are at today. XCN: After the failure of Xbox in Japan, how did you manage to get all the big Japanese developers to work on Xbox 360? Where they immediately convinced by Xbox 360's future there? Peter Moore: Well it's been a lot of work and it's been work on focusing on what the future of gaming will be and quite frankly there's been a lot of discussion about online and what online will mean in the future. But showing a commitment to the Japanese market I personally have spent a lot of time here over the last couple of years. we have a team in place right now that is very talented and very experienced. Maruyama San came from Square Enix where he was head of the US operation. We had some tough conversations, but innovative marketing plans, a real vision for the future. As a company Microsoft's great at sharing. What we do is build platforms and the windows platform was built. There are 1000's of companies that make billions of dollars because they sit on top of the windows platform. This is a platform (points at 360 console) this is a combination of very powerful hardware, incredible software and the ability if you have done the digital entertainment demo; I mean great games obviously but the software that allows you to turn this thing into a digital entertainment amplifier in your living room is probably only something a company like Microsoft could afford to put the resources in top make it work. And then Xbox Live, you would be amazed how that changed the perception for many of the publishers here who saw the future ultimately in online; and saw it as a way to innovate in the game experience. I think looked at our competitors and realised they really didn't have a strategy. They primarily went game by game. Nintendo clearly didn't focus on online at all and I think Xbox Live has been a tremendous help to us in convincing publishers that the future of gaming ultimately goes online. I mean you couldn't dream of your computer not connecting to the internet but 10 years ago computers didn't and we all feel so comfortable now. I think 3 or 4 years from now it will feel second nature "of course my console connects I'm always connected, my friends need to connect with me my friends need to leave me messages I need to play with them" That will be second nature! XCN: Why the choice of only one system in Japan? Don't you feel that the gamers in Europe and America will feel cheated especially with regards to the pricing? Peter Moore: Is 299 euros a good price, 209 pounds a good price is 299 dollars a good price. I'm not worried about what some guy in Osaka can buy something for that is in a currency that he's have never seen before in his life or doesn't understand the sales tax or value added tax. Believe me it all balances out. I don't think they are going to feel cheated; our concept very much was look, lets start with the Xbox 360 system; wireless controller, HD AV pack, 20 GB HD, Seamless connection to internet Xbox Live, headset you get a ton of stuff for $399 a ton of stuff for £279. And people should look at that and say "is this good value for money" and then go test drive this thing; it controls my digital camera it connect to my PC my iPod or my MP3 player or my windows media centre edition PC it opens up the entire living room for me and I'm not worrying about what someone else is going to get. As you find in any industry products are priced in their local market depending on what the supply and demand situation is. I haven't got the calculations 106 yen to the dollar what 37800 yen is and I'm sure the boards have got their calculators out done their maths; there's uproar! If they want to play in the foreign exchange game business and put some takes on…fine. We priced according to the local market and built a SKU platform for the market. Remember Maruyama San said, a week after launch who knows we might have the core system as well. Japan is focused on having a hard drive because there is uniqueness about this market, particularly the MMORPGS that we feel having a HD at the beginning is going to be important. Final Fantasy XI will come out at launch and in the Beta form as we announced and you know, the utilisation of the HD is important there is common data that you need when playing an RPG of that complexity they shouldn't worry. I know people get excited and agitated by these things but they shouldn't worry. They should focus on "is this good value?" Is this what I want under the tree this Christmas?
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