Xbox 360 Head Start

Over at Ars Technica there is an interesting write up covering an interview between Ben Kuchera of Ars Tech and Aaron Greenburg, the Group Marketing Manager for Xbox Live, and Scott Henson, product unit manager for Microsoft's game technology group.

Below are a couple of quotes from the article.

There is a lot of money to be made by selling things online, and a few companies are already on board with selling new cars, game levels, and even new guns and upgrades to your vehicles in games. But there is a limit, and EA has recently angered a lot of gamers with their new habit of putting up what amounts to cheat codes online for pay, and "tutorial videos" for Madden that also cost money. EA knows how to cash in wherever there is money to be made and gamers to annoy. I bring up these things and get the expected answers.

"Vote with your wallet!" I'm told. Fair point, but the fact that these things are being sold at all makes the microtransaction system itself look pretty bad. It's hard to be the classy online system when you're charging for what amounts to a video showing you how to hit buttons, or a shortcut to more money and a bigger gun.

and

I was more intrigued with the HD DVD drive as a piece of hardware. I asked if we would ever see games use the drive. A firm "no." I asked if we would ever see a 360 with an HD DVD drive built-in. Another firm "no." No hesitation.

"We don't want to charge customers $200 extra for something that may be the next Betamax," Henson told me (whoops).

News Source: http://arstechnica.com