Interview with Microsoft’s CXO
Yes, CXO – Chief Xbox Officer. A ridiculously long interview done by canada.com with Robbie Bach yields a number of gems. Emphasis is all mine. On the sales in Canada:
> Canada and Australia are our top two markets. Having a good product that fits with the culture here works very well. We could make it profitable today, but this is going to be a long investment business for a while.
So it fits the culture of Canada…okay. On the idea of making a profit:
> We are being smart about bringing the cost of producing the Xbox console down. We can decide to not make it a long investment business and price it to get a better return, but this is a 10, 15 and 20 year investment.
So Microsoft expects to stay in the red for at least 10 YEARS with the Xbox. That’s a great business decision. On handhelds:
> It took Sony eight years to decide to get into the hand-held space and Nintendo is pretty much demonstrating there isn’t any leverage between GameBoy and GameCube.
Right, which explains why the GBA is outselling the GC nearly everywhere. Because Nintendo has no leverage. On Bill Gates’ take:
> He looks at the whole concept and says how do we bring console gaming into the mass market. How do you enable the 90 per cent of women who don’t play games, want to play?
Obviously by making more games like DOAXBV! On the difference in business models between Sony and Microsoft:
> Sony basically is a hardware company that runs on very tight hardware margins with software (games) margins driving business. Microsoft on the other hand is a software driven business.