More to mass-market success than gameplay, claims Lewis

With the lowest spec model now undercutting Nintendo's soaring Wii, Microsoft Europe boss Chris Lewis believes the wide range of family-friendly services offered by 360 are key to the company's mass-market ambitions, and will stop it becoming "something that only gets yanked out of a cupboard at Christmas."

While cuts to the hard drive-carrying Premium and Elite 360 SKUs turn up the heat in the firm's scrap with PlayStation 3, the Arcade model's reduction to GBP 159 — making it the cheapest current generation home system — puts it squarely in the price zone that has seen Nintendo's Wii, at GBP 179, achieve huge success particularly amongst non-traditional gamers.

However, whereas much of the Wii's appeal hinges on an innovative controller interface and an accessible first-party games portfolio crafted to broaden its appeal, Lewis believes games are just one part of 360's strategy to break out of its hardcore comfort zone.

"The content has to be there; the best games have to be on our platform - but I also think people want to digest their digital entertainment in lots of different ways," Lewis told GamesIndustry.biz.

"They want to watch movies, they want to play on the Live service, they want to participate in different ways that isn't just about gameplay."

And in comments that can be seen as linked to perceptions of the Wii's 'party appeal', he added: "I think you've got to be prepared to be appealing in lots of different areas and make sure you don't become something that only gets yanked out of a cupboard at Christmas and particularly holiday peaks and doesn't really get used the rest of the time.

"I think you've got to be careful with that. I think our depth and breadth of experience will ensure that we never get in any way put into the cupboard in that way."

Arch-rival Sony's focus on peripheral-based mass-market products such as SingStar, Buzz and EyeToy has been a big success in recent years - one which Microsoft sought to emulate with the release of the Buzz-aping Scene It? last Christmas.

But while Lewis refused to rule out further experimentation in this area, his comments suggest Microsoft short-term focus will be on communicating the advantages of 360's feature set.

"You can certainly expect more [mass-market content] in general terms," he said.

"I think Scene It? is one aspect of what we've done in terms of broadening content. You can't ignore what we've done around sports; what we've done through Xbox Live Arcade. All of those are family-oriented, digestible and enjoyable things for a broader audience.

"TV and movies through Marketplace; again, I think that which we've done around parental controls. I think we're very proactive there, we've gone out in a positive way to talk to parents and guardians about how to control the digestion of content for kids. That is another strong statement about how family-oriented we are."

He continued: "And will we look at other physical forms of gameplay and other types of controllers? We keep our minds open about all of those things.

"Our track record is that we listen to what consumers want, and we try to deliver against that in the right time frame. I'm not dismissing any of those things that may appear with Xbox 360 in the right time.

"We're always looking for new ways for people to connect and have fun together."

As reported earlier this week, UK sales of Xbox 360 increased 40 per cent in the wake of the price cuts, with both retail and sales monitor Chart-Track expecting greater momentum running up to and beyond the busy Easter period.

Speaking before the price cut had come into effect, Lewis commented: "History would say you start becoming more appealing — particularly in parts of Europe where the propensity to purchase more than one console is lower, and they're more casual gaming places — history would say that until you get to that Euro 199 retail price you don't open yourselves up quite in the way you want to to that."

The second part of the GamesIndustry.biz interview with Chris Lewis is now online and available here. Part one is available here.