1up: Microsoft\'s Allard on Xbox 2, the HD era, and Nintendo\'s Reggie.

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Microsoft\'s J Allard Strikes Back
Microsoft\'s Allard on Xbox 2, the HD era, and Nintendo\'s Reggie.
by James Mielke
03/11/2005
With GDC coming to a close, the euphoria of gaming\'s biggest pre-E3 event has finally started to die down. But with all the keynotes out of the way, we had a chance to sit down with Xbox impresario, J Allard, and talk to him about Microsoft\'s next-gen plans, the competition, and hometown rival, Nintendo (and more specifically, Nintendo counterpart Reggie Fils-Aime). Confident, quick to respond, and almost unnerving in his caffeinated intensity, Allard left us with no doubt as to his expectations for the Xbox 2, a.k.a. Xenon\'s, ascent to video-gaming dominator. But don\'t take our word for it. Check out what the J had to say.

1UP: So you guys seem to have been paying very close attention to what gamers want, via Xbox Live, via plain ol\' feedback. As evidenced by Gamer Cards and the Marketplace. Please elaborate on where you think gaming is going, and the growth of the Xbox gaming community. It is, after all, way beyond any efforts Sony has made to pay attention to their consumer.

JA: You know that\'s our formula for success: Listen to the guys that matter, hear what they have to say, hear what they\'re dreaming, and then go help them do it. The game creators are really the heart and soul of this industry. And if we can understand what their visions are and help them realize their visions, they\'ll deliver the experiences that blow consumers away and they\'ll go buy product and the cycle will really begin. So our focus has been squarely on listening to gamers, listening to developers, trying to figure this out.

If there\'s one big thing that I talked about in the keynote, kind of went from the 2D era to the 3D era, and that had huge ramifications, now we\'re going from 3D to HD. The biggest part of the HD era I don\'t think is the displays, I think it\'s that in the 3D era, what we focused on was making the developers rock stars. Giving them the tools, giving them the instruments if you will so that they could do their thing. Now developers are making the gamers the rock stars. You know that the gamers can put more of themselves in the game and bring their imagination to the party, and if we can do this successfully in the next-generation it\'s really going to change gaming in a big way because it\'s not just the 3000-4000 people who are here (at GDC) this week, it\'s the imagination of the world.

1UP: So are you saying that it\'s less that you\'re shoe-horned into being the spiky-haired RPG hero and now you can be yourself.

JA: Yeah! Yourself or your virtual self. Look at the Sims. The Sims without self-expression is nothing, it\'s anon-existent game. Grand Theft Auto: How do you want to finish it? You look at other things that were even unintentional. Those are some intentional things, but look at other intentional things, um, Knights of the Old Republic, Fable. You want to be good or bad? That\'s kind of cool, but Red vs. Blue? You want to play Halo, or do you want to make a little movie with it? That\'s cool! That\'s super cool, so I think giving gamers a little more control is going to result in a lot more imagination being brought to the experiences, a lot more fun to consume, it\'ll make the interactive medium less about us interacting with the computer and more about interacting with the imagination of the world.

1UP: The Marketplace thing is interesting, and we often wondered what it would be like if, say, EA had created an online store where gamers could purchase things for a game like NFSU. New vinyls, new things to customize their game, these are the micro-transactions you speak of. But do you think that\'s an incentive for publishers to leave things out of games that would ordinarily go into them? If you look at the hundreds of items you can unlock or purchase, in-game, in something like SSX Tricky, or even something as simple as 2-player costumes in a fighting game, to the corporate types running these companies, it might be viewed as a great post-sale revenue source to make gamers pay for specific things. Do you plan to set a criteria for what is saleable?

JA: Nah,I don\'t think so. I think the gamers are gonna buy great gaming experiences, and I think if they feel like they\'re being nickel-and-dimed, they\'re gonna be really upset about it. So buy a cell-phone that doesn\'t ring? I\'d be really pissed off. You know if I had to go buy a ring for my cell-phone to work? Ok, no I buy a cell-phone that has ten different rings, but that\'s not distinctive for me. I want to go buy an eleventh. I don\'t feel bad about that. I don\'t even feel bad that it\'s two bucks. I feel good about that! So I think that publishers have to make responsible choices, and if they don\'t the gamers will vote. I think it\'s really simple.

1UP: So you think it\'ll be a self-editing process.

JA: Yeah, I think some people will screw up, you know, I think it\'ll happen. But I\'m not gonna put...if I put the process in place, that\'s not my role. That\'s like censorship, you know? Let the ESRB slap a rating on the thing, let parents decide who\'s gonna buy the thing, let the retailers card the kids. Yeah, not my job.

1UP: The HD Era and the "remix generation" point to the sharpest graphics and endless potential in customization. But even the most beautiful graphics and most customizable characters could still be used to wrap up pretty lame games. With such strong graphics potential, there\'s less room for error for a game publisher, given the amount of talent needed to create such games. How does Microsoft expect to help propel innovation in game-design in addition to graphics?

JA: You know, talk about one thing that\'ll change, there\'s lots of attributes to the HD era, you touched on a couple of \'em. One I didn\'t talk much about in the keynote was "input." Look at what voice has done on Xbox Live. A lot of people say "voice ain\'t input," no voice is input. You ever play Capture-the-Flag? You go up to your post, and you tell the team what\'s going on and you\'re declaring tactics. Now, you\'re not moving your character and you\'re not aiming your gun, but you\'re aiming your team. You know, it\'s the most natural input in the world, and people just take it for granted because it\'s invisible to them. It\'s the best input! So I think voice and video are going to play a much bigger part in this next generation, and I don\'t think the way you\'re gonna run is by yelling at your character, but I think it\'s going to be a really important augment in this next-gen world.

In terms of the visual fidelity, you\'re absolutely right. You know it\'s kind of like makeup artists now and TV networks, you know when they do a bad job on the HD sets. So I think the best way to do that is you\'re going to have a lot of specialized middleware, you\'re going to have things like natural motion that does amazing things with animation. You\'re going to have really precise lip-synch, um tools and that kind of thing. What we\'re hoping to do with XNA Studio is provide a framework so that you can go on and create your RPG, buy the seven or eight different off-the-shelf components you want, snap \'em in to a rational framework that you\'ve used before, and add the one or two special things that you want, and go get busy with it. So I think that there\'s going to be a lot more specialization, but with that specialization with XNA Studio, if we can augment that with some standardization I think we\'ll have done our part in helping the game designers.

1UP: Speaking of smaller studios, obviously with the signing of talent like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yoshiki Okamoto, and our buddy, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, you guys are not only broadening your appeal internationally, but making inroads to the Japanese developers. What is Microsoft and the next-gen Xbox going to be able to provide to these creators that the other companies cannot?

JA: Awesome platform. You know I\'ve been listening to all three of those creators and many more in Japan say "no" for five years. They\'ve told me why. I\'ve solved those problems. Each year, what they\'ve told me is the same thing that developers around the world have told me: It\'s more than hardware. "You have the very best hardware, but you\'re incomplete. It\'s about the right combination of hardware and software and services that you bring together into the soul of a system that\'s pure to gaming and pure to my vision, and that aligns with my values."

And so for the last couple of years we\'ve been saying "Yeah we share values, and we have the power, and we even have some software and services." But they say "You haven\'t demonstrated enough through action yet." So we\'ve been very, very consistent, been very methodical, been very patient, and they\'re very, very happy with the platform. They\'ve seen where Live has gone, they see where Live is going. They see how our development kit has matured over Xbox 1, and they see that Xenon is picking up right where it left off. They see the architecture of the hardware and the industrial design, and they say "Thank you for listening."

1UP: So do you think that Microsoft has slowly but surely removed the roadblocks that have kept certain 3rd-party publishers from supporting Xbox?

JA: That\'s what I do every day, baby. I break down those roadblocks. I look around, and I see who the best people are in the industry -- that are stuck -- and I knock down roadblocks for \'em. And sometimes it takes five years, sometimes it\'s just a little speedbump.

1UP: With things like custom-playlists used, in a simple example, to arrange your own music in a baseball game, there must obviously be some sort of rewritable media involved. The same goes for online games. MMOs could obviously keep character data stored on the server-side, but a perpetual world would need significant amounts of memory. But with no hard-drive, will the Xenon employ some sort of large-format memory format, like a 1 gig MU (Memory Unit)?

JA: (smiles) Not talkin\' about it. What I will say, I mean you\'ve got a great sense for some of the directions we\'re gonna go in in this next-generation, and you know, storage is just a necessary evil. You really shouldn\'t worry about storage. In an ideal world, it\'s all up in the clouds, and if there\'s a big Hard Disk that we all share in the world, that you can always connect to, that\'s cool. I mean that\'s the ultimate. I mean I don\'t care where my stuff is as long as I can find it, you know? I don\'t know where the servers are on in the Internet, it\'s just cool that I can go to eBay. I have no idea what computer I\'m talking to. So why in our lives is it like that? Just because we don\'t have the infinite bandwidth that we need, and we don\'t have that infinite hard-drive in the sky, so I don\'t get too hung up on storage. What I do is when I think what we need to do with optical media is listen to our developers, what do the developers say? I need throughput, is really important, seek-time is really, really important, great compression is important, or storage is important, but storage, you could solve that with software or hardware. You could solve that with great compression. Or, capacity? You could also solve by allowing me to save stuff and stream stuff from the Internet. So the answers aren\'t always that obvious, you have to listen to your constituencies. And the game developers are gonna dictate what we\'re doing with optical media, based on their needs we\'re gonna listen to what they want, and for the end-user is the same thing. What are the game creators creating, whether the users are gonna wanna save and personalize and things like that, what\'s the best way to deliver that?

1UP: So do you expect to have more to reveal on this topic at E3?

JA: Oh we have to, yeah.

1UP: You gonna bump some chests at E3?

JA: (laughs) Yeah.


1UP: Why did Microsoft Game Studios hold on to games like, oh, Blinx 2, but let go of highly-anticipated titles like Psychonauts, True Fantasy Live Online, and others?

JA: (shifts in his seat) There\'s always, you know, a lot of reasons that go into those kinds of decisions. The good news is, uh, that often when you make a business decision like that the creative can go on. Take an example of Oddworld. The second Oddworld in this generation wasn\'t published by us, but was published by EA. It\'s a lot of fun on Xbox. I was playing it just before I came down to the conference, great game. The important thing is the great creators are on Xbox, and we keep supporting them, and as a platform guy, first-party, third-party, whatever. Great creators, if you\'re not on my platform, tell me why, tell me why, I\'ll go fix it, OK I fixed it! Come on over. That\'s my program, dude!

1UP: What would you say the best lessons you\'ve learned over the last three years have been since the inception of the Xbox? Is there anything you might have done differently in hindsight?

JA: Oh, learned a hundred lessons. The most valuable one is keep listening, keep plugging along, play your own game. The most positive lesson is game developers are the center of the universe. This is the most important speech I\'ll do this year, the most important conference I\'ll go to, the most important dinners that I\'ll have and meetings that I\'ll have, because game developers are the center, and that\'s what we believed in Xbox. We rushed like crazy, you knew, we didn\'t have a team, we didn\'t have any time, we didn\'t know what the heck we were doing, we started way too late this generation in a lot of ways. And we had Halo, Gotham, Dead or Alive, Oddworld, day one. And then look at the follow-ups, I mean the best games, the best experiences that have been delivered this generation, a lot of \'em have either happened on Xbox, happened because of Xbox, eventually got to Xbox, you know, we made a pretty good dent, and why did we make a good dent, well we didn\'t. We enabled. Xbox doesn\'t deserve the credit, we just listened. My keynote here is easy. We\'re just holding up a mirror for the 2,600 minds that were in the room, to say "here\'s what you guys have been telling me for the last couple of years." Yeah, sure I created some vocabulary and tried to compress 2,600 peoples ideas into a 60-minute talk, but it\'s really their ideas. But if we keep listening, and we build the right platform, a combination of hardware, software and services, for them to realize their visions? We\'re gonna be successful. That\'s the playbook. I\'m a simple guy. Just keep doing that.

1UP: Nintendo VP, Reggie Fils-Aime, mentioned to us the other day that...

JA: The Reginator!

1UP: ...to paraphrase, "Microsoft is losing a ****load of money with each unit they sell," and suggested that this factor is precipitating your advance into the next-gen launch. What would you say in response to this?

JA: Nahhh, it\'s the right time. HD era is here. We\'ve got big ideas. Hardware advancements, software advancements, service advancements. The vision of the game creators. Go talk to the game creators. I think now is absolutely the right time. I think we are gonna time this next-generation absolutely perfectly. I\'m basing my timing based on what the game creative community has said, and what the gaming community has said. You know the gaming community finishes up watching the high-def Super Bowl, pops on their PS2, pops on their Xbox, and they\'re like "Huh...I\'m ready for the next level. Where you gonna take me guys? Where you gonna take me?"

1UP: Given how you\'re saying the time is right to move on, how long would you say you\'re going to support the current Xbox.

JA: Oh there\'s gonna be some great games for years on Xbox. We\'re going to support the Live community for years and years. Hopefully, um, the nice thing about Live, you take Live as an example, you say well is it two years, is it five years before you get down to a couple thousand users and you think about turning out the lights. Xbox Live is one service, it\'s the same service for Xbox 1 and Xenon. So we don\'t have to turn out the lights, it\'s always on. It\'s always on, it\'s on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, you\'re just going to access it through different versions of the console. You\'re going to be able to play on Xbox Live without owning a Xenon. All the cool Game Card stuff? You go over to your buddy\'s house, you go over to (Microsoft PR rep) Genevieve\'s house, she\'s got a Xenon, take your Gamer Tag with you, start building up your Game Card on our launch titles. Start building your reputation online. You\'re a subscriber, we love ya, man. You know, we\'re going to be supporting Xbox for a really long time. Gotta support the community, gotta support the retailers, gotta support the game developers, gotta support the game publishers. Lot of the game publishers are gonna make a lot of money in this last phase of the last-generation cycle. We\'re talking about the new generation for the early-adopters, for the pioneering game developers to start the next era. But for the budget-conscious consumer, they\'re still buying hardware, and for all of us as gamers we\'re still buying software. I dunno about you, but even if I could have a Xenon right now, I\'d still be wanting to be playing Doom 3 on my Xbox with the lights turned down low. I\'d still be anticipating Forza.

1UP: What\'s your stance on backwards-compatibility?

JA: I thought it was interesting...to throw one back at the Reginator (laughs)...you know, here you are at the Game Developers Conference, I stand up and I say "Here\'s where we\'re going, let\'s go guys, let\'s go pioneer a new path." And Nintendo didn\'t say anything about the developer, they didn\'t say anything about the future. They said "Next one\'s gonna be backwards-compatible." OK? What do I do differently as a developer? I walked out of my keynote, I\'m on the escalator with people and they\'re like "Yeah, so we\'re gonna do these achievements, I was thinking about these badges and micro-payments, you know what if we could do this and this and this and this..." And everyone\'s really excited thinking about how they\'re going to incorporate these new ideas into their games or giving me feedback saying "Could you do this, could you add this, could you do this, explain this to me a little bit?" They\'re engagement is around the future. I don\'t want their engagement in the past. I want their engagement in the future. That\'s what this conference is about. These are the pioneers. And the work that they\'re conceiving now doesn\'t materialize for two or three years. I don\'t wanna tell them about what happened last year. Seems a little crazy.

1UP: So the future is exciting enough that you don\'t need to look at the past or what\'s happened before?

JA: I didn\'t say that. I said it\'s priority one.

1UP: Sony has yet to experience the type of sophomore slump that both Nintendo and Sega have. And Microsoft has followed a pretty similar trajectory in your strong debut, but ultimately second-place showing. Do you think the next-gen Xbox is poised to take the industry-leader by surprise? Because Sony seems pretty ambivalent about the competition.

JA: Yes. (Laughs, then time passes as J lets his answer hang in the air)

We got our gameplan, man. This generation we started in the third-quarter of the season, right? There\'s no way, mathematically, that we could win the championship. We didn\'t even make the playoffs. We started too late. We knew that. You know what we did? We worked on our game. We worked on our pass. We worked on our rebounding. We worked on our teamwork. We re-arranged the team a little bit. Right? We got into our rhythm. Sometimes people cheered us, some people booed us. Sometimes we won a game, sometimes we lost a game. What I told the team was this is how we\'re keeping score, it\'s not the two numbers on the scoreboard, it\'s not installed base. Who\'s leading in online? That matters. Who\'s leading with developers? That matters. Who\'s winning the review scores with the best games that are coming out? That matters. Who has the most ambitious content coming out on their platforms? That\'s what matters. Who\'s connecting to the PC and doing things like Bungie.net and pioneering where the future\'s gonna be? That\'s what matters. Who learning from their lessons? That\'s what matters. Installed base? That\'s interesting. Everyone wants to report on it. All the fans are yelling about that. We\'re focused on our game. We\'ve been practicing all season. When you\'re out of the playoffs, you don\'t just roll up your tent and say "Oh I didn\'t make it to the championships, I forfeit." You go out there, and you work your asses out, and you put together the playbook, you run the plays, and you run the plays until your feet bleed. We are ready, more ready than any other team for next season. We\'re going for the rings.

I wish he would just come out and say if Xenon is going to be backwards compatible.  It\'s not a big playing card, Sony and Nintendo have already confirmed it for their next consoles.

I\'m interested about the whole storage issue.  Allard threw out several ideas there, I wonder which of them MS is going with.  This also makes me wonder what Sony is doing about storage, they already said the PS3 will not have a built in HD...

[Bobs_Hardware]

How about Blu-Ray disc\'s with a portion of the disc being re-writable?

And with the custom music being available for every game.. I take it that that\'s only if you have the HDD XBox? Edit: Wow, I didn\'t even see that part of the article until after I asked that question.. So, sounds like they want to store a lot of things online? That\'d be tough.

Originally posted by Bobs_Hardware
How about Blu-Ray disc\'s with a portion of the disc being re-writable?

I didn\'t know about the Blu-Ray discs being re-writable.  Would make sense though with all that space.

And with the custom music being available for every game.. I take it that that\'s only if you have the HDD XBox? Edit: Wow, I didn\'t even see that part of the article until after I asked that question.. So, sounds like they want to store a lot of things online? That\'d be tough.

Thinks of all the MS crap I\'ve posted lately...

One of the articles said that the custom music ability is done at the hardware level, it never specified where the music is stored though.  Seems like one of the only things MS won\'t elaborate on is what they are doing about storage.

[Bobs_Hardware]

I really think having an optional HDD this generation is ludicrous.  Obviously they\'re trying to cut down costs, but if they don\'t have an effective, viable alternative, then it could be their downfall. Re-writable disc\'s, I think, are the best alternative available. Online storage simply isn\'t acceptable at this stage, and I doubt people will want to buy high-capacity memory cards.. Considering how many casual gamers I\'ve seen applauding the fact that they don\'t have to buy a memory card with the XBox, having to buy an even more expensive one would be worse. Perhaps a built in 8 megs for saving games, then the option to buy a bigger card? Bah, another bad idea..

But considering how much emphasis they\'re putting on the custom soundtracks, surely they\'re already got a plan. Perhaps they just don\'t want to reveal it to the competition just yet... a separate CD drive just for music? Nah..

[Paul2]

I hope they should included at least built in hdd, say not too much if its bring up the cost.  I say about 1 to 2 Gbytes of storage is a good amount for many things.

Still no PS3 news

[Evi]

You mean PS3 news...

[Paul2]

lol.  Evis strike again.

Originally posted by EviscerationX
You mean PS3 news...

yes

[Bobs_Hardware]

Now that you\'ve editted your post, it makes Evisc look like the idiot!

[Evi]

Now that you\'ve editted your post, it makes Evisc look like the idiot!

You mean "edited."

[Bobs_Hardware]

Please try and stay on topic.