Xbox Gets Connected

Microsoft begins testing online gaming service, shows off interactive accessories, and hints at premium features to come.

Peggy Watt, PCWorld.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA-- Microsoft has begun beta-testing of its Xbox Live service, its previously announced online gaming offering that features real-time interactive contests among players who may be thousands of miles apart.

Ten thousand gamers--from more than 100,000 volunteers--will begin testing the service this week, says John O'Rourke, director of worldwide Xbox marketing. He gave a preview of the service at Microsoft's campus here and offered a peek at upcoming games that go beyond 3D support to provide VCR-like time controls in their play.

Microsoft expects to launch Xbox Live on November 15, the one-year anniversary of the Xbox's debut. A $49.95 introductory Starter Kit will include a year's worth of access to the service and a headset that allows players to talk with each other during the game. Players must also have a broadband connection.

Seven games that take advantage of the Xbox Live service are expected to be available upon launch, O'Rourke says: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon from Ubisoft; Unreal Championship from Infogrames; Sega's NFL 2K3 and NBA 2K3; and NFL 2003, Whacked, and Mech Assault from Microsoft Game Studios. An update to the popular Microsoft game Halo is in development and will be available in a version for Xbox Live, O'Rourke adds.

Another ten games are scheduled to ship before the holidays, and 50 games are expected to ship in 2003, he says. Also likely: premium services available through Xbox Live for an additional fee, like premium channels on a cable television service.

Disguised Players

Microsoft is aggressively pursuing the game console market. O'Rourke notes that eight out of ten U.S. households with school-age children have video game systems, and that 40 percent of households overall own some kind of game console.

"Xbox started as a dream of people who really loved games," O'Rourke says. "We thought it was an opportunity for Microsoft to come in and bring something new to the video game business and catapult it to a new form."

For example, the microphone/headsets that Microsoft provides with the Xbox Live service don't just enable voice communications. Players can apply "voice masking" so they can change the sound of their voice and assume a different identity. "With this, you can be the big badass guy even if you're a 90-pound weakling," O'Rourke says. You can also "mute" other players if you don't want to listen to their comments.

Xbox Live users get a so-called gamertag they will use as their online identity, enabling them to identify other players and form communities. The system can automatically search for potential online opponents, based on your scores or from a list of online friends, O'Rourke says. He added that Xbox contains parental controls, so access to other players or games can be limited to an approved list.

O'Rourke also previewed a new video game called Blinx from Microsoft's game development studio in Japan. The game, featuring a janitorial cat that battles evil using a superpowered vacuum cleaner, provides VCR-like controls so users can pause, record, rewind, and apply scenarios from earlier times to the game action. Such functions rely on Xbox's 8GB hard drive, built into the first consoles.

"Five years ago, the revolution in video games was 3D," O'Rourke says. "Now, everything is 3D, and you've got to have that richness. Next is 4D."

Two-Pronged Play

O'Rourke emphasizes the social aspects of multiplayer online gaming, as opposed to the solitary focus of a single-user game console.

"Gaming is incredibly social, not just for the time spent playing, but when you're talking about it afterwards," he says. Microsoft has been impressed with the gaming cafes in Korea--the country with the greatest penetration of broadband.

However, he notes that Microsoft will continue to develop and promote single-player games as well. O'Rourke says 60 game developers are writing for Xbox Live.

And Xbox is purely a game console he adds, addressing an inquiry whether the system might acquire PC-like functions. "It was designed to be a video game system," with no nongame applications planned, he says. "We think we're redefining how people think about video game systems."

The company claims great strides in Xbox console sales, despite a bit of a bumpy start that included price cuts six months after its release. O'Rourke says 3.9 million Xbox consoles have sold worldwide, as well as 20 million game packages. The company claims a 25 percent market share in the U.S., which "sounds about right," according to IDC games analyst Shelly Reimer.

However, no more than two Xbox games were in the Top Ten list of console games sold in spring and early summer, as tracked by the TRSTS Service, an association of the market research organization NPD Group.

Microsoft is already marketing Xbox in North America, Japan, and Europe. Next year it will enter six new territories, primarily Asia, as well as New Zealand, O'Rourke says.