Allard 'Gets Real' With IGN

schnikies79 writes "In an interview with IGN, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Chief Architect J. Allard said he wants to work with competitors on the XBox 360. From the interview: 'I'm pro consumer on this one to the end,' says Allard. 'Anybody in my company who thought this was a bad idea to plug in Sony or Apple devices into this thing, I ended that conversation pretty quickly. This is the right thing to do for consumers. Once they invest $500 in their digital media library, you can't ask them to go buy a 360 music player and a 360 digital camera, and a 360...NO! They got their stuff. They're going to want to plug it in. We're going to be open here, guys. And if anything, I wish we could be more cooperative with the other companies that are doing those things. And if Sony or Apple were to call me up and say, "Hey, we want to some special things with the 360," I'm on it. I think it would not be in anybody's interest to say, we're not going to work with 360. It's good for them, it's good for us, and it's good for consumers.'"

Comments

Re:Sorry friends but i DO NOT believe this guy

[Eshock]

How about the numerous tests, both independent and Microsoft-sponsored that show iPods and PSP's interfacing with the 360?

Sounds like he has other things to worry about

[CuteVlogger]

Q: How about Microsoft? Will you be shipping your first-party games a week before launch?
Allard: I don't know. Haven't certified a game yet. There is no game in manufacturing yet, that's the only thing I can attest to. And when we do, you know, retailers did that a little with Xbox, it's going to be a retail by retail decision. I don't think we're doing anything to try and coordinate that.

Haven't certified a game yet? And launch is less than a month away? Sounds like there's going to be some supply problems in the very near future.

Honto ni?

[Dante Shamest]

If he really was concerned about the consumers, why not create products to plug into the Playstation/PSP or the IPod?

Forgive my cynicism, but I think the main reason is because Apple's IPod and Sony's Playstation have a much larger share than Microsoft's XBox. Of course, Microsoft would want to play "fair", since it'll benefit the XBox 360 more than it would benefit the products of the other companies.

Re:Large 'IF'

[GoodOmens]

However IF apple DID partner on this it would be a very devestating blow to the Sony PSP.

I mean the psp is allready in enough trouble as it is...

I could see something like this working, only in turn as a marketing ploy so you would buy more 360's then PSP's ....

Allard = Baby Bill

[tyates]

Back in the day, Allard was one of the first guys to champion Microsoft's adoption of TCP/IP. Later, he got pulled into "Project 42", a disastrous attempt to come up with some Windows monstrosity that was supposed to counter thin-client platforms (like Java) but never got off the ground despite its team of fifteen hundred. After that he took a leave of absence, and only agreed to come back if he got to lead the development efforts for the Xbox and do it free of bureaucracy. They call Allard and some of the other guys like him "Baby Bills".

From TFA

[payndz]

Basically what happens when you get final hardware late, you're sloppy. With all deference to the developers, you've got to take every out you can and so they're not applying all their talents, as they will next year and the year after to get every little bit they can out of it. They're being a little sloppy with the CPU, they're being a little sloppy with the discs, they're being a little sloppy with their formats and compression to make launch. And next year, you'll see that they tighten that up so they can get more out of the system using the same disc capacity, using the same compression, and the same art tools, and so they'll get a lot more out of the system next year.

Way to sell your new system. I don't know about anyone else, but I read that as 'We're really rushing this thing to market to beat Sony, and the early games might be as botched as that EA football game on the PSP, but hey! In a year from now, we'll probably have figured out how to do some really neat stuff!' And then adding on the next page, 'In the meantime, you can buy all these cool customised fascias! That's gotta be worth something, right?'

"Pro-Consumer"? Hah, what about Video?

[sprayNwipe]

Nice to see that this "pro consumer" attitude unfortunately doesn't extend to the video parts of the Xbox 360, which require a Windows Media Centre PC and only supports WMV.

If they'd just allowed the usual video formats, they'd have a sure fire winner. For now, I'm sticking to my Xbox with XBMC as my HTPC.

Correct me if I'm wrong

[mcc]

But iPods and PSPs can only be used as media storage/retrieval devices, right? Last I heard you can't use an external storage device like the iPod or the PSP as a memory card or a replacement for the XBox HD.

So it seems to me like the XBox 360 is only open in a very limited sense.