While Microsoft wasn't making any grand announcements a la Sony and their Home service or focusing their keynote on cultivating the gamer tastes of Peter Moore's wife a la Nintendo and the Miyamoto family, they did have a presence at last week's Game Developer Conference. That presence centered on Mass Effect and Microsoft's RPG Panel (a gathering which included BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzkya, Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, and Mistwalker's Hironobu Sakaguchi).
While Mass Effect continues to impress, Microsoft remains coy on when the title will ship. Although looking at the upcoming release calendar for Microsoft, there is a little bit of space for BioWare's space opera to slip out. We're expecting Forza 2 in May, Shadowrun in June -- Peter Moore said both titles would ship before June 2007 -- and Blue Dragon in August. That leaves July for Mass Effect. Speaking to 1UP, Corporate Vice President Shane Kim talked about when Mass Effect would release: "It makes no sense for first party titles to compete with other first party titles. It's really about showcasing the platform." Kim said. "Mass Effect is the kind of title I would not be afraid to [launch in the summer]. It's the kind of title that we could launch in the middle of August in France and people would still buy it."
The company that owns BioWare, Elevation Partners, is an investment group. They purchase, invest to increase value and then resell their acquisitions. The rumors that BioWare is working on a PS3 title are true. BioWare's bosses, Doctors Ray Muzkya and Greg Zeschuk told 1UP that they were working on all next-gen platforms, in addition to the previously announced Nintendo DS team. Until now, BioWare has shipped games primarily on the PC and Microsoft platforms, is their work on a PlayStation 3 game part of a plan to press Microsoft into opening their wallet and acquiring the studio from Elevation?
"Buying developers is not a panacea at all. It's not always the right answer; it can lead to more problems rather than fewer," said Kim. "I'm not a big proponent [of buying developers]. If you look at MGS, we probably do a quarter of our titles internally and the rest with external development partners. It's not about owning the talent; you can't ever own the talent." That said, Kim admitted that Microsoft tried to buy the studio: "Well, I tried, but& not everybody wants to be bought, Elevation owns BioWare," Kim said.
Besides, BioWare is still shipping Mass Effect on Xbox 360 and Dragon Age on PC (what if it came to PlayStation 3 and PC?), so what incentive do they have to purchase BioWare?
We returned to discussing Microsoft's first party portfolio for 2007. With Grand Theft Auto IV due in mid-October, Microsoft has to figure out when Halo 3 and Project Gotham Racing 4 fit into the release calendar. Kim confirmed that PGR4 was due this fall, though did not specify a date. Why not? Well, because Microsoft won't ship a game in October to compete with GTA IV, and with Lost Odyssey coming in December, that means Halo 3 and Project Gotham Racing 4 have to fight over September and November.
With the success Halo 2 enjoyed at retail, would Microsoft even entertain shipping the game outside of the oft-expected November timeframe? According to Kim, it's not really up to Microsoft: "We don't tell Bungie when they have to ship Halo 3. If they can get out before GTA4, they probably feel like that's better, sort of like Xbox 360 coming out before PlayStation 3." But would Bungie and Microsoft actually ship Halo 3 outside of the November window? As Kim pointed out, they've had success shipping titles outside of November before: "What happened in September of 2004? In September of 2004 we released Fable, Fable got big sales and then in November got big sales again," Kim said. "I just believe great titles can get the double bump and I think Halo 3 is going to be that."
Does Kim mean he believes Halo 3 will be a great title or get a double bump? If the latter, maybe seeing Halo 3 ahead of GTA IV isn't such a farfetched proposition.
One of the jobs Kim is tasked with involves planning the company's portfolio. Last console cycle one of the games that Microsoft published was a title named Kung Fu Chaos from Just Add Monster. Just Add Monster is now Ninja Theory, the folks behind Heavenly Sword. Did Microsoft pass on adding Heavenly Sword to their portfolio before Sony Computer Entertainment picked up the title? "Well, we talked to a lot of developers. We see lots of pitches," Kim began. "And of course we did have a previous relationship because of Kung Fu Chaos with that developer [Just Add Monster/Ninja Theory] and without going into a bunch of details, we try to be fairly selective about the titles that we put into the portfolio, partly because it's so expensive now develop really big, impact full titles." So did MGS pass on Heavenly Sword? "I'm sure that we looked at Heavenly Sword. One of the hardest parts of my job is to make those portfolio decisions. We don't make decisions about titles we do based on portfolio, we never have," said Kim. "I think that's a really dangerous thing. We don't have a horror survival game in the portfolio, but I know I could commission someone to go do a really bad one. That's not how we want to do things. We felt that we prioritized the right things. I still stand by that decision."
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