When one of the head honchos of any of the three major gaming companies decides to sit down and talk, there is always going to be something interesting to discuss. Such is the case with Scott Steinberg, the the VP of marketing for SCEA.
While the majority of what Mr. Steinberg is old news to us who have been following the industry since the launch of the Xbox 360, there are a few gems which make one stop and ponder for a moment.
"The time that they (Microsoft) had to create huge distance and build a massive install base before the PS3 could really take root; that opportunity is over and there’s no real capitalization of it. They had a great crescendo moment with Halo and it helped catapult them into a pretty strong position towards the back end of last year, but they were still within a stone’s throw of where they were with the original Xbox.
"To me that speaks of a failure to broaden their reach beyond the core first person shooter player who was in their back pocket for Xbox. The question for us is ‘are they really going after the PS2 demographic? Are they stealing share from us?’ And the answer is no."
Is the Xbox 360 primarily a shooter’s console? Surprisingly, yes. From day one it has been the first person shooter market which has been the driving force behind the Xbox brand. The Halo franchise is arguably the most powerful franchise Microsoft has going for it, and it is an FPS. With the launch of the Xbox 360, Perfect Dark Zero was pushed by Microsoft as the best game to buy along side COD2–both shooters.
Just this past Christmas the biggest games on the Xbox 360 were Halo 3, COD4, and The Orange Box; again all shooters. This shouldn’t surprise many people since before World of Warcraft and other casual games, the PC market (where Microsoft came from and is still involved in) was mainly FPS. Will Microsoft ever capitalize other genres? With GTA4 and Gears 2 coming out this year, the perspective of the games are thankfully changing but the core gameplay seems to be locked solid into wielding a gun.
[Via NextGeneration]
