This week at CES we had the opportunity to chat with David Dennis, Group Manager for Public Relations, Interactive Entertainment Business (in English: PR Manager for Xbox 360/Kinect amongst other things) briefly about the Xbox 360, Kinect, and Xbox Live. While much of our conversation reiterated points made during Steve Ballmer's CES Keynote for Microsoft the night prior, Dennis shared a number of important bits of information on Microsoft's philosophy moving forward with the Xbox 360 and Kinect.
On Hulu Plus:
While Steve Ballmer's keynote on Wednesday night made no mention of the particulars of how Xbox users would gain access to Hulu Plus, Dennis clarified the situation. As most Xbox 360 owners might expect, "Hulu Plus will require an Xbox Live Gold subscription." Meanwhile, Dennis also confirmed that "Like Netflix, Hulu Plus will require its own subscription fee in addition to Xbox Live Gold."
On Kinect and the Dashboard:
"Obviously we continue to work to add Kinect functionality to the Xbox 360 experience. We're still working on adding additional language options and voice commands to (it)." Dennis was less clear about the Kinect Hub adding support for media streaming outside of the ESPN/Netflix/Zune/Hulu ecosystem; when asked whether Kinect and voice playback of media streamed from Windows PCs would be added to the Xbox 360 dashboard, Dennis demurred, stating that Microsoft's ultimate goal was parity between the standard controller driven interface and Kinect.
On launch dates for Kinect Netflix support and Hulu Plus on Xbox 360:
"We're aiming for Spring," according to Dennis, reiterating Steve Ballmer's announcement earlier this week. When asked if they'll release individually or be rolled up into a bigger system update, Dennis said "that will depend on when they're done -- if one of them is done significantly before the other, then we'll release it. But, if they wrap up within a short of amount of time of each other, we'll try to put them out at the same time. It's just logistically easier that way.
On Kinect vs. the Hardcore
"Obviously we're very excited by the success of Kinect," Dennis said. "But we have no intention of abandoning the Xbox 360 audience that bought in originally. We're very aware of the key role the enthusiastic core audience played in making the Xbox 360 what it is, and we'll continue to support and develop (titles) like Halo and Gears of War." Crytek's exclusive Codename: Kingdoms was mentioned and Dennis stressed that there are a number of core-focused titles in development that have not been announced.
On additional improvements to Xbox Live:
"A lot of the improvements we've made to Xbox Live over the last year have been behind the scenes -- a lot of work went into making sure Xbox Live was ready for the release of Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops," Dennis said, tacitly acknowledging the previous issues the service has experienced in the wake of high profile releases like Modern Warfare and Halo 3. "But," he continued, "we're very aware of the kinds of improvements Live users want to see, and we'll continue to work on developing the service." When asked what the biggest player priority seemed to be off the top of his head, Dennis replied "the friends list issue, which, you know, only affects a certain percentage of users, but clearly it's very important to them."
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