Interview with XBOX Australia's Adam Pollington
Shortly after Microsoft's E3 2009 keynote speech, we had a chat with XBOX Australia's product marketing manager Adam Pollington about Microsoft at E3 and the future of the XBOX 360 in Australia.
My360 - Last E3 we were introduced to Netflix for US XBOX Live. This year we’ve gotten the announcement of streaming Full HD movies, with Australia being added to the list of countries with a movie service on XBOX Live. Any time frame on when we will see it and why such a long delay?
Adam Pollington - While we haven’t announced a specific release date yet for Australia, it is definitely on the horizon prior to Christmas this year. It’s definitely coming in the short-term. In reference to why it’s taken so long to come down here, it’s just a timed process to gain licensing approval for the actual movies that will be released. You would think it could be done on one level for the world, but that’s not the case and it does take its time. The good news is that we will be finally getting movies on demand in Australia and New Zealand including the Full 1080p HD content.
My360 - The announcement of project Natal is quite mind-blowing. Everyone expected motion sensoring, but not this. It looks amazing. What is Microsoft trying to achieve with this though? Are they trying to bring in a new gaming audience like the Wii has done, or totally reinvent the way we play games?
AP - We’ve always thought that the 360 is future proof. We talked today about it being controller-free gaming and that’s really where we’re moving. By removing that controller it really broadens the audience that the XBOX 360 appeals to, so while this technology will appeal to the core gamer, I’m sure it does make it a lot more accessible to someone who hasn’t done a lot of gaming before, using their head, hands and feet. Whereas for the core gamer, it’s going to be new technology they’ll want to play with. It’s not really targeted towards a specific type of people.
My360 - There’s obviously more of a focus on family gaming, probably over the past 12-24 months. Is Microsoft going to ditch its core Halo/COD4 crowd for a more casual, and therefore larger, audience?
AP - The 360 is very much about choice. We’re going to provide the best of both worlds. E3 has shown this. Project Natal will offer something new, but there’s also Halo 3: ODST, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, Forza 3. The list goes on and on. The games are still streaming in. for that core gamer. So we’re offering something for both audiences and moving forward with Natal while still offering the same for the core XBOX crowd. It’s the year of home entertainment. We’re at the forefront, introducing a whole bunch of new features – movies on demand and also with Facebook and Twitter.
My360 - Steven Spielberg said 60% of households didn’t have a gaming console. Do you think that’s because of a lack of innovative ideas or because the industry is still growing? Will something like Natal change that?
AP - I think traditionally gaming has been a little bit more niche, but over the past few years, games are really exploding. I think that while the statistic that Steven threw out there might seem conservative for the time-being, the market is growing at such a high rate and I think we’ll see that 60% decrease over the coming months. The current market of consoles are growing significantly. The XBOX 360 has been the fastest selling console of 2009. The growth has been fantastic. I heard an amazing statistic the other day that a new XBOX Live profile is being created every 5 seconds around the world. That really shows growth and how much XBOX Live is growing for us.
Will Facebook and Twitter work on the 360?
My360 - Microsoft are really pushing the community aspect – now with Facebook and Twitter being integrated into XBOX Live. What’s going to make people want to check out their Facebook on their 360 as opposed to their laptop?
AP - The biggest reason is that you can access them from your big screen TV while sitting on your lounge in the living room. Another thing is that you can switch from Facebook to Twitter to playing games on XBOX Live to chatting with friends via video chat on XBOX Live all in that one central location without actually leaving your living room. And then of course we’re introducing all-new technology. We’re not just replicating Facebook but we’re implementing new features. There’s something called Facebook Connect that lets you take screenshots from a game and upload them straight to Facebook without leaving your seat and start making comments on it through your console. It’s pretty amazing when you think that XBOX Live has 20 million users, there are 100 million Facebook users and 30 million Twitters and we’re bringing them all together in one place on the 360, which is massive.
My360 - With movies and social interaction coming to XBOX Live, do you expect numbers to rise dramatically over the 2nd half of the year in Australia?
AP
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The natural growth that we’re seeing is already phenomenal. We’ve seen 80% year-on-year growth on XBOX Live for the first few months of 2009. With some announcements like these and the social networking elements, as well as the new avatar integration, I think the growth in XBOX Live will grow faster and faster.
My360 - We’ve seen the amazing Live statistics, with 20 million global XBOX Live users. How do the Aussies hold up compared to global statistics. What percentage of Aussie 360 owners go on XBOX Live?
AP - In excess of 700,000 sold 360 consoles in Australia and New Zealand, with just over 600,000 in Australia, with 50% of them on the XBOX Live service.
My360 - For the last couple of years, we keep hearing about how it’s going to be “the year of the PS3”, yet the 360 seems to always be that step ahead when it comes to software and hardware sales. Are you confident the 360 can have as strong a year in 2009 as it did in 2007 and 2008? How has the year been so far?
AP - The growth we’re going to see with the 360 is just going to continue. What’s really helped the growth is the choice and value that the 360 offers. We’re still at that fantastic price point of $299 where you can pick up an XBOX Arcade bundle, and then there is the vast variety of features we offer on XBOX Live, coupled with the announcements we’ve made today, so I’m confident we’ll continue to see the growth as we head further into 2009.
My360: Thanks for your time, Adam!
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