Halo 3 and Second Wave

[dipdude]

Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim discusses Halo 3, the second wave of Xbox 360 games, and lessons learned from the recent platform launch.

We caught up with Shane Kim at the recent DICE summit to talk about the various issues surrounding first and third party Xbox 360 development. Not surprisingly, we wanted to talk about Halo 3, but Kim points out there's a whole lot more going on at Microsoft than that game...

Excerpts :

What are the big bets coming up?

We made some pretty significant announcements at X05, but the attention then was focused on the [hardware] launch. We talked about the Crackdowns and the Too Humans or the Mass Effects, and you'll be able to see more from those titles soon, as well as Gears of War.

How much of an improvement will we see in the second wave?

Our general strategy has been to focus on quality rather than quantity. Those four titles — you'll hear a lot more at E3. We have a few other things that we are working on that we'll announce between now and E3, so we haven't told the world about everything

Some have said that the launch lacked a single killer game.

I don't think that's fair. Everyone is looking for a Halo and a GTA, but we have to realize there are only two of those titles in history, and they weren't those big legends before they launched.

It is easy to look back and say 'nothing the size of Halo came out', but the launch titles were all solid good games and there was some amazing work.

I would put this portfolio up against the original Xbox launch portfolio any day. I don't see the fact that there wasn't one game that everyone wanted to buy as a criticism. The strength was in the variety.

If you look at the attach rate that speaks to the quality of the portfolio of the highest attach rate in history which is an indication of real quality.

For the entire interview Click Here

 

[madmonkey]

Hmm...the only thing I can say tht this interview is not as exciting as the Fear 2 interview ..they hardly said anything abt halo 3 ,it's just tht there would be more killer titles coming out and it's all abt their strategic planning