The Microsoft Keynote In Depth

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.

Comments

Wha?

[hollismb]

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:Monopoly

[Romeozulu]

I've got a better idea, why not shun all consoles since they are evil in the way these big companies control the content that can and can not be put on them. Support the PC, which is completely open, no big-company restrictions.

Do you really think you're going to see anything other then big-budget games on XBox/PS3,GameTriangle, Nope. Because these big companies will only allow games on the machines that like.

The problem with /.'ers if they way they will bitch bitch bitch about something, but will never make any hard choices that might cause them an ounce of inconvenience of lack of fun.

Hypocrites.

Re:Monopoly

[AvantLegion]

How ironic of an argument.

PC gaming is where the small budget games are dying. Games like Katamari Demacy are succeeding on consoles, thanks to their huge installed bases. But on the PC, only the blockbuster games like The Sims and Half-Life 2 remain. Niche genres (flight sims, adventure games, etc) are dying left and right.

Re:Monopoly

[ZephyrXero]

I'm willing to bet the constant release of new graphics cards is actually one of the main things hindering the PC game world right now. Because the big two keep releasing new generations of cards less than a year apart each year, there is a huge push that you need to have a fairly new card in your system. Most of the big name PC games require fairly beefy systems to play well. This may be fine for hardcore gamers and what not but, the average joe doesn't like feeling his system that he just bought last year is already outdated when he tries to play Quake4. This is why people love consoles... you are usually guarenteed at least 5 years between each generation and a console is about the same price as a mid-range PC video card. Your "joe average" gamers don't want to pay any more money than they have to. So...in conclusion, let's spread the new vid card generations out to at least every two, maybe even 3, years and then not have minimum requirements for your games that are less that 5 years old components. Sure, most of the smaller indy developers realize this, but the big name game companies will have to realize this too before the casual gamers take notice.

The other big problem with PC gaming is that all the companies have all but given up on making controllers for them. Try finding a decent gamepad for you PC sometime at a chain store (where Joe Average shops). Mouse and Keyboard may be perfectly fine for playing shooters and MMORPGS, but for everything else...you NEED a gamepad.


*Sorry for any bad grammer, had to write this really quick...