They have to think ”how best to use” the time slot available, and Lewis believes it was spent wisely with SmartGlass, which pushed the console even more as a digital hub.
He reiterates they’re committed to ”great content, great games, for the core and for the casual.” Lewis has gotten a ”very strong sense of confidence” from people over what they showed.
”We do have an embarrassment of riches, I think, in terms of the things that we have at our disposal to discuss, and as you can imagine in the run-up to this event we have to think very hard about the time available and how best to use it. But I think if you look back at what we covered, there is a lot of games content there,” said Xbox boss Chris Lewis.
”Whilst we’re excited about the vision to see the Xbox 360 central as that entertainment hub in the home, we remain committed to great content, great games, for the core and for the casual.”
”I like the balance of what we announced, but clearly you’re bound to get a positive opinion from me. People I’ve been speaking to here in the last 24 hours have given me a very strong sense of confidence based on what they heard from us.”
The announced SmartGlass is all about an eco-system of connected devices. What of Microsoft gearing up for the next generation of hardware? What of the Xbox codenamed Durango? No word yet.
”As I said earlier, we’re still growing. We were up last year over the previous year. The partners love the length of the life-cycle, because it means they can really stretch out the boundaries of the technology. Retail likes the longevity, and that we attach more games and experiences than any of our competitors.”
”So no, we haven’t talked about the things that you reference simply because we think we’re in a very good place at the moment,” said Lewis, referring to talk of the next Xbox.
”We’re competitively priced. We enjoyed the number one position globally in 2011, which is what Don prophesized at E3 last year. Europe, as you can imagine, needed to play a very central part in that. Our business health and general economic health is fabulous.”
”We’re pleased where we are. We’re in a very enviable position, I think, and our partners would agree.”
While refusing to discuss anything specific on a new Xbox, Lewis did extol how Microsoft foresaw the importance of online platform support when they designed the very first Xbox console.
”I’m genuinely proud of the progress we’ve made in terms of listening to what our consumers want. The architecture of the first version of Xbox, with the Ethernet port and the vision for online gaming, was a marvelous prophesy.”
”I think we were very well placed back then, and I think we developed our proposition in a really powerful way, to the point where we can talk about connected and digital entertainment in a way that we might never have dreamt possible ten years ago.” Lewis then talks a little about the challenges of the economic climate.
”But I like where we are. I like the position we’re enjoying. The future’s very bright, but we’re enjoying great momentum right now, and long may that continue.”
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