Microsoft's Plan to Be King of All Media

An anonymous reader writes "Saul Hansell from the New York Times spoke with Microsoft's J. Allard, formerly of the Xbox games division and now in charge of their push on Apple's captive audience with the Zune. Allard lays out Microsoft's media battle plan, highlighting their longterm goals for expanding beyond games and software. 'This service will at some point add more options for video and mobile phones, Mr. Allard said, without offering details. Actually, Microsoft has been quite successful selling video downloads and online movie rentals through the Xbox Live service already. This seems a bit too much like the initial plan for MSN. This new network would be the switchboard through which all entertainment content and communication flows. Pretty much everything else in the technology world now is revolving around open systems where the Internet, and some simple standards, are in the middle.'"

Comments

Re:Duh! Xbox.

[LaughingCoder]

Soon we'll have HD movies, and gaming and internet all wrapped up in one device

This doesn't sound like a bad thing to me, nor does it sound bad for the consumer. Kudos to Microsoft for considering the big picture. They actually have a longterm strategy that they are executing (quite well, apparently). It's funny, but we often complain about companies that only focus on the next quarter's results, forgoing all longterm planning and strategies. And yet, in the same breath we complain about Microsoft for its dominance. Maybe, just maybe, their dominance is related to their ability to look ahead and plan accordingly. Nah, they're just teh evil.

Re:Wrong.

[aplusjimages]

Xbox was and is a total failure so is Zune and everything else microsoft tries to force into peoples face.
What is failure to you? The fact that over 70% of the world uses Windows OS? That Xbox live is the best online gaming system there is as of right now and they are only on their second generation console? How long has Nintendo been in the business and they didn't get online until the GameCube and that was with one game. I'd say they are succeeding if they have customers paying for a service that the other two consoles are giving away for free and still can't touch the Xbox Live userbase. As for the failure rate, that is a problem, but not enough for people to stop buying the console. The 360 still sells more units than the PS3. In fact, in September the 360 sold half a million units beating the Wii which has been the leader for months.

The Zune isn't a failure. It isn't as popular as iPod, but what media player is?

They will fail with their upcoming downloadable Original Xbox games since those games won't have achievement points and Halo:CE will not have online play. M$ needs to listen to the audience here, who is saying they will buy Halo:CE again if it has online play.