t this year’s Tokyo Game Show, we had a chance to sit and talk with Aaron Greenberg, the Group product manager on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The company has been trumpeting the support it’s been receiving from Japanese publishers and developers, including the recent announcement that the upcoming Ninja Gaiden II will be an Xbox 360 exclusive. During our conversation, we discussed the challenges Microsoft still faces in the Japanese market, why it’s taken so long for RPGs to hit their consoles and what’s next for Xbox Live Arcade.
Q: Do you think that now we’re starting to see things like Warhawk coming on the PlayStation Network that you might have to change your model with Xbox Live Arcade, like increasing the size limit again?
A: No. Even though we’ve increased the size limits to our games, we still see that the majority of them tend to be very, very small. We’re not getting requests from Arcade publishers saying there’s not enough room. I think digital distribution is definitely the future of the industry in a lot of ways, but how fast that happens remains to be seen. I think we’ll continue looking at ways to distribute more content. I think Xbox Live Arcade itself is about pick up and play, small-sized games that are quick to download. I don’t think that will change. Will we digitally distribute more game content in the future? I think that could happen. I don’t think we’ll ever make Arcade turn into the size of retail games or anything like that.
Q: Do you think there are any genres that are underrepresented on Xbox Live Arcade?
A: Yeah, sports for sure, I would see as a big opportunity. We’ve had a lot of feedback on that. I don’t know if we’d consider Cyberball a sports game, but that just launched. If you look in the sports genre, I think 3D Golf is in there, but there’s a big opportunity to even bring back some of the classic sports games. We’d love to see that happen. Otherwise, I think there’s pretty good genre representation.
We want to continue to balance away from the classic retro games to more original, independently developed games. I know we announced Braid, which is coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Schizoid, which is the first XNA developed game, is coming. A lot of other titles from pretty small shops—it continues to be a good platform for those guys.
Q: The half-off promotion you had over Labor Day weekend seemed like a pretty smart idea. Is this something we can expect to see more of in the future? It seems that the prices on Xbox Live Arcade, once they’re set, don’t typically get reduced.
A: I was definitely a big fan of that. Our Arcade marketing guys did that program, and I can tell you it was a huge success. The lift definitely outweighed the cost for us. I think we will see more of that, which I think is great for consumers. [ed. Microsoft announced their second Arcade price drop yesterday] Maybe you were going to definitely buy Lumines, but with Small Arms you weren’t really sure. If we offer it for $5, it’s like, “OK, now I’m in.”
Making those more impulse-priced purchases available is something that we’ll continue to do. We don’t really self-develop most of those titles, so we really have to work with our partners to agree to offer them at a lower price. Now, given the response, we can show our other partners the results and get them to support it. It would be great, ideally, to have something like when you go to Amazon.com and there’s always stuff on sale. You’re there for the new releases, but they promote the back catalog, too.
Q: The Xbox supported downloadable content—you had the Hurricane Packs for Ninja Gaiden and the maps for Halo 2, for example—but with the 360 it seems as though DLC has just exploded. When we saw the demo of Ninja Gaiden II, one of the first questions was, “What’s your downloadable-content strategy?” Any time we see a game that’s in development for the 360, someone asks about DLC. What do you think about downloadable content, and how do you think it’s changed the way developers approach the platform?
A: It’s becoming standard practice. There are very few games now that don’t do it. I think people expect that when they buy a game there’s going to be add-on content that they can buy or get for free later. Initially, we saw a minority percentage of developers or publishers who were leaving a team behind after the game was finished to do add-on work, but they had a lot of success with it. It seems simple, but consumers really decide it. It’s been tremendously successful. I think we’re at 290 million downloads on Live since we’ve launched. If you look at the earnings reports for Ubisoft and EA and Activision, they talk about financially significant earnings that they’re getting from add-on content specifically. It’s like another channel, a whole other business.
From a gamer’s standpoint, when I play the game and want new maps or new content, I’m willing to pay for it. Even with Guitar Hero 2, I bought all the songs. I wish there was more! I want more. If anything, that’s the challenge, getting people to support it even more.