Hier wel een kewl interview. hoop dat dit nog niet gepost is. Justin Calvert, GameSpot.com The recent European release of the same Xbox Sega bundle that Microsoft made available in North America a couple of weeks ago has given the sales of Microsoft's console a considerable boost. Despite the arrival of Super Mario Sunshine and a GameCube bundle containing a copy of that game, the Xbox has recently overtaken Nintendo's console in terms of both weekly and total sales in Europe. Microsoft's next major push is Xbox Live, which is due to launch in North America at the end of this week. GameSpot recently met with Michel Cassius, the European head of Xbox Live, and Richard Teversham, the UK head of Xbox marketing, to discuss the future of the console, the challenges of launching Xbox Live in Europe, and whether Microsoft is using the Xbox Live service to monitor subscribers' gaming habits, among other things. Q: Will launching Xbox Live in Europe be made any easier by the fact that you'll soon be able to get feedback from users in the US? Michel Cassius: We hope so. We hope the fact that they've launched in the US will allow us to learn from that, but we've got to be realistic on this -- Europe is different from the US. There are different languages and different broadband providers to consider, so we are going to learn ourselves from what we do here. There's one thing, though -- the platform of Xbox Live is the same worldwide. We've got 20,000 people already playing in the US, we're going to have 3,000 over here, and the Japanese will be launching before us as well, in January. On our side, we are learning through the phases that we put together. There's the consumer beta, which is starting this week. Then we've got the test drive, which is starting at the end of this month or at the beginning of December, and then we've got 14 March, when we launch at retail. It's all making for a good learning curve, and we're trying to learn as quickly and as much as we can. You mentioned the language barriers in Europe. Are all the Xbox Live games going to enable players to choose to play with people who are speaking the same language? MC: There is a way to do filtering right now within the platform, and all the games can benefit from that. So, for example, you can invite only your friends to play if you want to. So usually, your friends and the people you talk to are going to be speaking the same language as you, so you can do that. Looking into the future, we will probably have something that says "this person speaks this language" so you can choose the language that you want to play and then your language will be one of your attributes. Right now it's not on, but I don't think it will be a big issue. One thing about online gaming is a lot of people play with people they know, so the fact that there is the gamer tag and the friends list is very important for launch. Do you think that Xbox Live games in the future will be designed to encourage the use of voice in a bigger way -- in team games, for instance? MC: It will. I mean, when you look at team-based games that involve things like stealth or sports, you can imagine situations where I could give you instructions like, "Go left. I'll go on the right," and only you can hear me so our enemies don't know what our tactic is. I think more games will definitely start to use voice like that. MotoGP actually uses voice in an interesting way too. Climax decided that they wanted to have a maximum of four people talking to each other, and the way that they've done that is that when you talk, the only people who can hear you are the three people closest to you on the track, plus one person that you choose. So there's different ways to balance it, and that's part of the gameplay. Given the cost of broadband in Europe, the fact that it isn't even available in a lot of areas, and the fact that under 5 percent of people in the UK actually have it, do you think the time is right to launch a broadband-only online platform? Richard Teversham: I suppose the question to ask you then is, "Why would people have broadband today?" Probably just for PC gaming, and that's it, really. I know that once people get broadband they never want to give it up because the speeds are just beautiful. We've obviously been talking to BT, ntl and Telewest, and they're really excited about Xbox Live because they see this as the killer app, and they see this as something they can use in their armoury -- giving people yet another reason to have broadband in their home. So, it's almost like, you know if you have a PC in the home you can get broadband and everything will be a bit quicker, but if you can also have your Xbox on broadband, then you know what? That's a good reason to get broadband. We are working with them on joint marketing plans so they can take advantage of our customers and we can take advantage of their customers, and working together we hope to get as many people as possible using broadband and as many people as possible playing on Xbox Live in a very simple, easy way. So today it is not a simple thing. I mean, Germany's great because there's only one service, but in the UK there are lot of different services. We're working with each of them to make sure we have an easy solution -- and that will probably end up being an Xbox-compatible broadband service, so they are the ones we recommend from the different suppliers. Also remember that this is just what they'll supply today. Half a year or two years down the line they may be providing an Xbox-only broadband service. You know, they will evolve with us in time, because initially we're going to have a very tight audience of people with broadband and Xboxes who are committed gamers, but when we hit Christmas a year away, that's when we'll probably go massive and go to a much wider audience. At that stage, the whole infrastructure will be set up and the whole thing will just be going like a train. The point here also is that if you're a third-party publisher, this is the only service. It doesn't matter what your size is -- you can develop a game for this platform. If you're with our competition, you actually have to do everything yourself. That's security, making sure hackers don't get in, gamer tags, and all those sorts of things, and a lot of people can't afford to do that, so our service is accessible to all the games publishers while the competition's isn't. So they will eventually have games for the Xbox or Xbox Live. The starter kit comes with a 12-month subscription, so after that date you'll be charging a monthly or perhaps annual fee for the service. Have any decisions been made concerning that? RT: Nothing is decided as yet. We've got until 14 March 2004 to decide. MC: The best analogy for the service itself is probably the one about mobile phones. So when you want to subscribe to a mobile phone company you can choose to pay as you go, you can pay monthly, you can pay on a yearly basis, and so on. There are different packages available, and we're thinking about it like that. So, since you haven't decided what the costs are going to be yet, would there be anything to stop someone from going out and buying a second starter kit for the 12-month subscription if that turns out to be a cost-effective way of doing it? MC: That's a good idea. We'll have to think about that when we look at pricing. RT: But if with your gamer tag you're number one in the Halo league or something like that, are you really going to want to trade that in for another one when you buy a second starter kit? That gamer tag is unique to you. If you get a new one, you'll have to start at the bottom again and reestablish your reputation. We've got some readers in our GameSpot forums who have been beta-testing Xbox Live in the US, and a couple of them have expressed concerns about two-way traffic on their connection. Basically, they're concerned that Microsoft is monitoring their gaming habits -- which games they're playing, how long they're playing them for, and so on. Is this the case? MC: What we want to make sure is that the network is secure, actually. I mean, of course we know the traffic, and of course we know the sessions, but we're not tracking individuals. We just want to make sure that it works for everybody, and that it's secure for everybody so nobody's gamer tag can be hacked. When it comes to individuals, it's more when people find that they are being bullied or something like that by some people in a game. They would then be able to bring that to our attention and say, "You need to do something about this guy, about this gamer tag, because they are behaving in a way that ruins the Xbox Live experience for others." Otherwise, no. You know, there's this big thing about "big brother," right? I've heard that so many times. If you've got a subscription to broadband at home with whoever the provider is, do you just think, "Ooh, I'm surfing the Net, maybe they know what I'm surfing"? Maybe they do, yeah, but is that basically what it is about? No, I don't even think of that. There's a privacy statement on the Web site, there are rules and regulations, and there are terms and conditions when you sign up. We basically comply with all the regulations, all the rules, all the privacy statements, and everything there -- we're very, very clear about that. At one of our previous meetings, you stated that you were able to tell if someone on Xbox Live was using a modified or chipped console, and that you were considering excluding those people from the service. Has a decision been made on this matter? MC: We haven't decided yet. What we do know, however, is that updating the Xbox dash for Live seems to create some problems with mod chips.
deel 2 RT: So, it's not deliberate, but by default... And on those machines the warranty has gone. GS: We've heard that publishers have to pay an additional royalty for Xbox Live games and that you've had some resistance to this from companies such as Electronic Arts. Is there any truth in this? MC: I'm not speaking for EA, because they're big enough to speak for themselves. But here's the thing: we have invested in Live the same way we have invested in the offline platform. It's a big investment. The way the thing works from a financial perspective is when there are royalties to be taken from the platform. We developed Xbox Live as an extension of the Xbox platform. It's a platform, and we've done all the investment and all the heavy lifting. When we do that, as Richard was saying earlier, the publishers and developers can only benefit from it. They don't have to do the servers, they don't have to do the authentication, they don't have to do the security, and in some cases they don't even have to host the servers. There are plenty of things they don't have to do, and that's at a cost to us. So, looking at who is able to do the same thing that we have done, there are only a few companies. Yes, EA has invested a lot in its EA.com, but I'm sure there are ways that we'll be able to work with EA. We've got a very good relationship with them, and I hope we'll find a way to have their products on Xbox Live. GS: It's recently been confirmed that Xbox is now the number-two platform in Europe, ahead of the GameCube. Are you confident that you can now stay there and perhaps start chasing after Sony? RT: You know, we've just moved up to number two in the UK and we're feeling really good about that. We thought we'd just built a platform, but if you look at it, it's very basic. Our lineup for Christmas is better than the competition -- that's Sony and Nintendo -- and after Christmas we've got a whole host of exclusive games, including Beach Volleyball, Metal Gear Solid: Substance, and Brute Force. Then we've got Halo 2, Project Gotham 2, Perfect Dark, BC, Fable, and so on. So we've got great content coming along. Then we've got Xbox Live coming out, so my view at the moment is that if you buy the competition's console, that's great for today, but that's it, really. If you invest in the Xbox, you've not only got that, but also a lot more going forward. You know, a lot of the games aren't using the full Xbox to date. Blinx is using the hard disk, which is great, but there's so much more to come. Now, the new consoles aren't going to be coming out until, at a guess, 2004 or 2005, so if you want to have a console that's growing for the next two years, Xbox is the choice. Now, our competition is big. They're good, and we have nothing but respect for what they do, but we have to try bigger, better, harder, and smarter than they do. That's what we do every day. Our motto in the office is "nobody said this would be easy," and it's not, but we think we're doing the right things, we're learning along the way, and we're bringing innovation into the market. I think this market loves innovation, although I think sometimes they're a little scared of it as well.
Vertaling intervieuw is nog niet helemaal af was te moe om verder te typen,ik ben er al lang mee bezig ik zal eerst mod's vragen of het wel nuttig is om hier mee door te gaan maar kheb al een groot deel af,leest ook makkelijker ,zeg even of je dit goed vind of niet. De recente uitgave van het sega bundle pakket heeft een goede boost gegeven aan de verkoop van de xbox.Vanaf gezien dat de NGC een paket met mario sunshine heeft uitgebr8 hebben we hun toch nog ingehaalt met wekelijkse verkopen en het totaal verkopen. Gamespot heeft een ontmoeting gehad met:Michel Cassius(MC).het europese hoofd van xbox live!en ook met Richard Teversham,het hoofd van de marketing van de xbox in de United kingdom om verder te discusseren over de toekomst van de console. Vraag:Zal het lanceren van xbox live! in europe makelijker gemaakt worden omdat jullie rugsteun hebben van gebruiks in de US. MC: Dat hopen we,we hopen dat van het feit dat ze in US zullen leren.Maar we moeten realistisch zijn,Europa is anders dan de US.Er zijn verschillende talen en verschillende breedband servers.Dus we gaan van onszelf leren wat we hier gaan doen Er is wel 1 ding:Het platform van xbox live! zal voeral hetzelfde zijn we hebben al 20 000 gebruikers in US en we gaan er hier 3 000 hebben.En de japaners zullen ook eerder dan ons zijn,zij al in Januari. Van onze kant,we leren van de tijden dat we bezig zijn.Er is een klant beta test welke deze week start,dan hebben we de test run die we doen aan het eind van deze maand of aan het begin van december,en dan hebben we 14 maart wanner we het uitbrengen.Het zal een goede leercurve zijn en we probelen zoveel en zo snel mogelijk te leren. Je hebt het over de taal barriere's gehad,gaan alle mensen alleen met mensen van hun eigen taal spelen? MC:Er is een manier van filteren nu,daar kunnen alle games profijt van hebben. Als voorbeeld,je kan kiezen dat alleen vrienden je game inkunnen.Die mensen waar je mee omgaat gaan dan ook steeds meer dezelfde taal spreken.In de toekomst,kan je mischien een game maken die alleen toegankelijk is voor mensen van die taal.Op dit moment staat die optie niet aan maar het zal niet zo'n groot punt zijn,Het feit is dat mensen graag met vrienden spelen,hierbij zulle de gamers tag en friendlist een grote rol spelen bij de launch. Denk je dat xbox live games in de toekomst zullen aanmoedigen om het gebruik van de stem te gebruiken,op een grotere manier.Bijvoorbeeld in team spellen. Mc;Dat zal het,ik bedoel waneer je kijkt op een op team gebaseert spel dat in zich heeft als sport en stealth missie's,dan kan je je wel situatie's voorstellen dat ik zeg;ga naar links ga naar rechts,en dan kunnen vijanden niet horen wat we zeggen,jah ik denk dat later meer mensen gebruik van dit gaan maken. Het feit dat breedband niet eens beschikbaar is in sommige delen,en het feit dat minder dan 5% in UK breedband hebben.Denk je dat de tijd rijp is om een alleen-breedband-platform te maken? RT:Ik veronderstel dat je vraag dan is,waarom hebben mensen breedband deze dagen?Waarschijnlijk alleen voor pc-gamen,echt waar.Ik weet dat waneer mensen breedband hebben ze het nooit meer weg willen doen door de snelheid ervan.,we hebben duidelijk gepraat met BT,ntl and Telewest.En ze zijn erg enthousiast over Xbox LIVE!.Ze zien dit als nog eeen reden om breedbandin huis te halen.Je weet dat als je een pc hebt en je haalt breedband dat alles wat vlugger sneller zal zijn.Maar dat je er ook xbox live! mee kan spelen,dat is een verdomt goede reden om Breedband in huis te halen.We werken tesamen over marketing plannen zodat wij gebruik kunnen maken van hun klanten en zij van onze.OP deze manier hopen we zoveel mogelijk mensen te bereiken en zoveel mogelijk mensen aan xbox live! te krijgen op en heel simpele manier. Maar vandaag is het niet zo simpel,ik bedoel Duitsland is te gek omdat ze maar 1 service hebben.Maar in de uk hebben ze er meerdere,we werken met hun allemaal om een simpele oplossing te vinden.En dat zal waarschijnlijk zijn een xbox-comatible breedband service.Dus die raden we aan van de verschillende leveranciers.Denk er wel aan dat dat is wat ze vandaag leveren.Binnen een half jaarte of 2 jaar dan kunnen ze wel is een alleen xbox-breedband service.Weet je,ze zullen steeds meer evolvuleren met ons,we zullen een gehecht publiek krijgen met breedband en xbox'es.Volgende kerstmis zullen we naar het groter publiek gaan.Op dat moment zal heel de infrastructuurklaar zijn en het zal gaan als een trein.
Precies, gewoon in het Engels laten. En als je het dan zo nodig moet vertalen, vraag het dan even aan mij
nee zkz niet goed in engels,maar ik d8 dat mischien mensen het handig zouden vinden,maar jah zo te horen niet doe ik het maar niet verder
