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Q: Pete, Xbox 360 is still the top-selling video game console in the U.S. but
revenues are dropping. Microsoft shipped 5.9 million consoles during Q2, down
from 8.2 for the same period a year ago. Do you attribute that to gamers waiting
for your next-generation console which is heavily rumored to be coming out in the
coming months?
Pete Isensee: Xbox 360 has sold over 76 million consoles worldwide. Xbox
360 continues to be the top-selling console, a record it's held for 24
consecutive months. There are plenty of other bright spots. For instance, Halo
4, which rang up sales of $220 million in its first 24 hours, has earned the
record as the best-selling game of the Halo franchise. Xbox LIVE boasts over
46 million members people who love all the services available, whether
that's great multiplayer gameplay, music, or video entertainment. What's most
amazing to me is the continued improvement in game quality. The Xbox 360
silicon is unchanged since being first delivered in 2005, yet the software
continues to improve and games continue to get better. This console has legs
that will carry it well into the future.
Q: What can you tell us about that next-gen console and how should developers
who want to build games for that console be preparing?
Isensee: The Xbox team has always been dedicated to enabling new, deeper,
richer experiences for consumers, but it's too early to comment on what the
future holds. Right now we're plenty busy with Xbox 360. In many ways, the
next generation is already here in the form of natural user interfaces powered
by Kinect. Nearly a third of the Xbox 360 install base already has a Kinect
sensor. Up until the launch of Kinect in 2010, the only user input that Xbox 360
developers had to worry about was a handful of controller buttons a total of
about 50 bytes per game frame. With Kinect, games have access to an
incredibly rich input stream of depth and color and audio to the tune of 1.4MB
of data per frame. That's about 30,000 times the information available with
controllers alone! Game developers are still exploring all of the new
experiences they can enable by tapping into the power of Kinect. Developers
thinking about the future would do well to consider how natural user input can
power their new gameplay ideas.
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