Thursday
September 27, 2001
Interview with
Ryan Mugford from Microsoft
Microsoft held a
conference at the Omni
Hotel formally the Four Seasons Hotel in
Montreal with a selected small group of the media
Tuesday September 25 afternoon. It was the first
conference done in Canada concerning the Xbox.
Ryan Mugford the Marketing Lead from Microsoft
came to show us the latest built on their new
racing game called Project Gotham Racing and to
explain the Xbox in more detail.
First was there a
specific reason for the date being change for 15
instead of the 8 of November for the launch? No,
numerous factors was involved in the decision and
we concluded that it would be best for everyone
if we pushed back the date for 1 week.
Ryan showed us
that it is simple to operate the Xbox just press
the start button then the menu comes up so you
can choose your game. Then he explained to us in
detail how and why the controller was conceived
that way. Microsoft did a lot of test with
different controller they changed it so it would
have more functionality and be comfortable if you
were to play a long time with it.
I asked him why
is it so big? Ryan said that this controller is
geared towards the people of 16- 28 years old
that is why it is a little bigger then others.
Then I mentioned the Japanese one - In Japan
Microsoft released a smaller version for that
market - are you going to sell both in North
America ? Microsoft is considering it but it not
sure if it will or not bring the smaller version
in North America. But Ryan added that some
hardware companies will put on the market
different type and sort of controllers. And as
for the wireless they did not do one because they
did not want the controller to be to heavy and
that again other companies will do some.
But what they did
do is have a 9 feet long wire with it with a
safety plug meaning if your kids or your cats and
dogs get entangle with he wire it will just
unplug itself so that the whole console is not
dragged off the shelf or fall to the floor.
2 more thing they
added to it first when you play a racing game the
trigger are your accelerator and your break so
after a while of driving your tomb is not tired
and the same goes with fighting game. 2 more
buttons were added one black one white on the top
of the regular one to give it more functionality
like programming more moves for fighting games.
Concerning the
weight of the Xbox it is approximately the one of
a VCR and as for what kind of engine is inside
Ryan was explaining to me that they splited it in
3. The processor is an Intel
733mhz chip and the XGPU -
Xbox Graphic Processor Unit - is 3D
processor that contains more then 60 millions
transistors from NVIDIA and as for the sound it will feature the
new Dolby Interactive
Content Encoder, a breakthrough
technology that dynamically encodes multichannel
audio into Dolby Digital 5.1.
Plus since it has
a large hard drive it can hold about 2500 songs
in memory. Developers are now working on how to
utilize and intergrade that feature in future
games. Meaning that when you clear a level in a
game that one of your favorite song can be played
in a bonus level or that when you play the game
get random songs saved on your hard drive for it
soundtrack.
Then I got to
play the latest built on their new racing game
called Project Gotham
Racing being developed
by Bizarre Creations. Click on the name to see
the preview but one thing that set this game
apart from others is that it is the first
racing game with license cars that can be damage
never before this was allowed.
Are you planning
to sign more licenses for the Xbox? Yes we are
planning to sign more like the Bruce Lee: Quest
of the Dragon
Microsoft has not
yet announced the entire list of titles to be
release for the launch but here is a list of what
has been confirm by the third parties to us and we will add
them has they are confirmed in the next few
weeks. We can expect between 15 to 20 games to be
release on the 15 on November for the launch
Thank you to Ryan
for your time plus Johanne, Peggy, Mélanie,
Maria and Linda for arranging this interview .
- LadyDragon -
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