GameSpy has an interview with Xbox Product Manager David Hufford. He seems pretty optimistic about the console's success and the state of Xbox Live.
Here's the interview...
GameSpyDaily: What does this announcement mean for Xbox?
David: Xbox has had a significant impact on revenues because it's a high volume, high priced product. The profit aspect however is something that kicks in in year's three, four and five. That part of our business is just now scaling up. It's just now really starting to take off.
GameSpyDaily: How well did Xbox Live perform in terms of revenue?
David: It's tough to know what impact it had on console sales but the service itself exceeded all our expectations -- we sold over 250,000 starter kits by the end of 2003. That essentially doubled our initial expectations. We had three of the top four Xbox games enabled for Xbox Live online play during the holiday season and I really think what we're starting to do is to show people the value of online gaming.
GameSpyDaily: What are the plans for Xbox and Xbox Live in 2003?
David: It's a big year for us. We have 200 games on the market right now, and we're certainly going to be at over 300 games by the end of this year's holiday season. Some of the big games this year include first-party titles such as Brute Force, Midtown Madness 3 and Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus. From third-party we'll have Enter the Matrix, DoA Xtreme Beach Volleyball, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Return to Castle Wolfenstein -- which will be an Xbox Live title.
The Xbox Live service itself will receive enhanced service features. We're going to be expanding the community-based services as we move through the year.
GameSpyDaily: Can you tell specifics about the new features?
David: Everybody wants tournaments, so we're going to be doing a lot on the tournament side of gaming. But the only thing I can say at the moment about the other new features is that Xbox Live will become much more personal for people and it'll be better integrated with other new features that we build in.
GameSpyDaily: What do think the user base for Xbox Live will be at the end of 2003?
David: There are no firm projections for that. It all depends on what the second half of the year's lineup will look like. Right now we have a good sense of what the lineup is but not a strong enough sense to be able to say what the numbers might actually be. We think that Xbox Live will grow as the game business typically grows.
GameSpyDaily: Do you think that because Xbox Live is broadband-only, this may impact sales throughout this year?
David: There's no question that broadband pinches the audience-base. But the people that we're trying to attract in the first year of Xbox Live are the hardcore gamers. Typically they are the early adopters of technology and already have broadband. The worst thing that we can do is create a service that's narrowband / broadband and turns off the hardcore gamer. They are the most important people to us as they'll help us evangelize Xbox Live out to millions of other people. So we want to make the world gravitate to broadband instead of having to dumb down the system.
GameSpyDaily: Who do you perceive to be the competition for 2003.
David: Sony is still obviously a strong number one and we've never had any ideas of overtaking them in the first couple of years of this business -- we're in this for the long haul. But now we really feel like we're establishing ourselves as a strong number two and we're looking to create more distance between us and Nintendo.
GameSpyDaily: Can we expect some big announcements at GDC / E3 later this year?
David: E3 will be the time for the big announcements. Everybody likes to save their big guns for the show and we're no different. We'll trickle out some cool information between now and then, so the momentum is not really going to slow down that much.
GameSpyDaily: When does Xbox Live launch in Europe?
David: It launches on March 14, 2003, but we actually launched the service in Japan yesterday (January 16, 2003.)
GameSpyDaily: How is the market in Japan currently?
David: It continues to be a tough market for Xbox. We're there for a long time, let's put it that way! We're going to be relentless in that market.
I'm glad that they're not thinking about toppling Sony. I don't see that happening at all this generation. Cementing the #2 spot seems much more realistic and feasible.
I'm also glad Live is doing so well. It's a blast to play and can only get better.
Japan's a tarpit for Xbox and doesn't seem to improve. No matter what they do, no headway is made. I hope things get better this year, although I doubt it.
Anyone know the total amount of Xbox consoles sold in the U.S. vs. Game Cubes? I'm just curious, as he says they're ahead of Nintendo.
