Shane Kim and Phil Spencer of Microsoft are excited about this year’s line-up for the Xbox360 with Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 in the pipeline.
Though they admit ”it’s easy to look back and go ‘you can’t possibly be as strong’,” referring to last year’s star studded guest list of COD4, Mass Effect and Halo 3.
”I feel very good about our line-up,” said Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios vp. ”I think if you look at the inception of the 360 and our contributions at Microsoft Game Studios, this holiday looks to be in my mind another great holiday for us.”
”…The line-up that we have both this holiday, and looking into the early concepts and prototypes to come, I think it lines up against any competitive line-up that I see out there.”
There’s no heavyweight like Master Chief to the rescue for the next-gen console this year, which Shane admits but is thrilled with their upcoming project nonetheless.
”I think the platform is just as strong, if not stronger. That’s hard to say, because we had incredible titles last year with BioShock, Halo 3, Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4. … Especially when you look at Halo 3, which was a phenomenal industry event, it’s easy to look back and go ‘you can’t possibly be as strong’,” mused corporate vp Shane Kim.
”But if you look at the initial success of Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360, that’s been super, and we have exclusive content coming too. Gears of War 2 is going to be huge, Fable 2 is going to be huge.”
Sony will be swinging back hard with the PlayStation 3 this year with some big guns ready to fire like Resistance 2, LittleBigPlanet and the big wave of interest from the hotly anticipated Metal Gear Solid 4.
”I believe that we’re going to have just as big of a year in terms of content on Xbox 360. Maybe we don’t have a particular exclusive that’s as big as Halo 3, but I do think that Gears 2 and Fable 2 will be really big hits,” added Shane.
Click here to read a full interview between Shane Kim, Phil Spencer and Next-Gen.