by Playfuls Staff |
28th September 2006
A year after Xbox 360’s launch on the market, Microsoft
continues to live a paradox. Although it was the first of the three competitors
involved in the battle of the gaming consoles to succeed in launching its
product on the market, and although [more] it has had a whole year of being
gamers’ only alternative, Microsoft hasn’t obtained a significant advantage
over its main rival, Sony’s PlayStation 3.
PlayStation 3 is still present in gamers’ buying
intentions, despite repeated delays, problems concerning the Blu-Ray unit and a
price apparently set to frighten customers. There are only a few more weeks before
PlayStation 3’s launch, an event which was intended to have worldwide impact
but has begun to look more like a confidential reunion.
As a result, Microsoft has realized that the time has come
to move on to the next level in this game of “Battle of the Consoles” and has brought
backup. After spending nearly 5 years in the complicated world of gaming, where
the line between success and failure can depend solely on one game title on the
market, Microsoft is no longer a novice. It has finally become clear for the
company that if they are to outdo PlayStation 3, the time has come to look in
the magic box and to launch the title which will become a “killer application”.
The strategy is not a new one and Microsoft has used it
previously for Xbox. At that time “Halo” was the title that brought the Redmond company a second
position in a market that appeared to be the exclusive business of Sony and
PlayStation 3.
Microsoft has obviously not forgotten its lesson and once
again it turns to “Halo” to repeat the miracle. The stakes are much higher this
time around though, so Microsoft has called on a magician of the screen, Peter
Jackson, who will be actively involved in the production of “Halo 3”, as well
as in the creation of Wingnut Entertainment along with Fran Walsh.
As times have changed and gamers have become harder and
harder to please, it might just be that one “killer application” is not enough,
therefore Peter Jackson and his Wingnut Entertainment will start work on a new
game, about which Microsoft has so far kept quiet.
Peter Jackson’s coming on board the Xbox 360 ship is, for
Microsoft, the logical consequence of the company’s attempts over the last year
to ensure exclusiveness over some of the games. As the delayed appearance of
next generation gaming consoles has meant plenty of complications for
traditional game producers, which are confronted with dropping sales, none of
them showed much enthusiasm in offering exclusiveness. Most gaming studios
prefer to bet equally on each of the three next generation gaming consoles. So
Microsoft has applied a strategy well known in the software industry: if you
can’t convince them to work only for you, buy them!
Peter Jackson represents an important partnership for
Microsoft for other reasons as well. Over the last few years, one of gamers’
more or less manifested discontents has been in connection with the chronic
lack of imagination the industry appears to suffer from. The abundance of games
sporting a 2 or a 3 in their title has proven that the industry is not willing
to risk millions of dollars for a title that is not a box office success. Most
companies therefore prefer to launch games in which the script is sacrificed to
the detriment of the graphics and count on gamers’ nostalgia for titles that consumed
their days and nights, instead of bringing innovations.
Co-opting Peter Jackson means “new blood” in the industry
and if you read the press releases carefully, you can understand without
difficulty that the fate of the second game Wingnut Entertainment is promising
is surely connected with the success of “Halo 3”.
Will Peter Jackson be the ace up the sleeve that will
allow Microsoft to win its match with PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii? When it
comes to video games, Jackson
is not at his first experience. The director’s most recent incursion
dates from the end of last year and was produced in Ubisoft’s company. The game
was actually named “Peter Jackson’s King Kong” and rumors going around at the
time said the director was particularly interested in the creation of games. This
year, around February, there was even talk about a King Kong 2, but neither
Peter Jackson nor Ubisoft confirmed this piece of information.
Analyzing what King Kong revealed, even though the man’s degree of involvement is not clear, it is obvious that Jackson will be the right
man in the right place for Microsoft and that he has an interesting perspective
over what digital interaction and entertainment mean.
However, Sony is not a simple adversary either. The
Japanese company still controls 50% of the gaming market thanks to PlayStation
2. Indeed, things have not run smoothly for PlayStation 3 lately, and repeated
delays are not exactly the best of marketing strategies, but Sony’s gaming
console still has enough arguments to give Microsoft a hard time, even when
absent. Will Sony attempt to enroll a director in the PlayStation army, a director
that will make games? If so, perhaps Hollywood
should start worrying.
Apart from financial and marketing calculations, Peter
Jackson’s involvement in the world of games is a significant gain for gamers.
It remains to be seen what the consequences will be for Microsoft and Sony!
