INTERVIEW by Gerard Campbell

At E3 last week we were given an exclusive opportunity to interview Microsoft's Marc Whitten, the worldwide general manager of Xbox Live. He shares with us his vision for the platform and how it is turning your TV into a box full of "magical experiences".

Xbox Live’s general manager Marc Whitten might not have been willing to spill too many beans on the upcoming Live Arcade release of Rare’s classic Nintendo 64 shooter Perfect Dark, but according to him, “the team is working on it, it’s up and running, and it’s already fun. It’s definitely looking very good and I think it’s going to be a great classic.”

Perfect Dark stars secret agent Joanna Dark as she battles galactic conspiracies in 2023 America. The Xbox Live Arcade version will run at 60 frames per second and in 1080p high definition, and word is that a running demonstration was on show at E3 behind closed doors. Joanna Dark has already appeared on the Xbox 360, in the console launch title Perfect Dark Zero.

In an exclusive interview with Gameplanet, Whitten spoke about social networking on Xbox Live, Arcade games and the future of digital distribution. Whitten said part of his focus was to ensure that the six million Xbox Live visitors each day continued coming back to the service.

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Quote: “Take for example, the Live Party mode viewing functionality (where up to eight people can watch the same movie simultaneously together, wherever in the world they are). This is something that you can only do in the digital world and the social aspects of that, as everyone has to access the content at the same time.”

I don't see the benefit of this at all.

To be honest, neither do I. Sounds a little pointless to me.
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I'm pretty sure you could do that with a conference telephone call. Hardly only in the digital domain.

When you think about friends in another country that you hardly ever see, you think about watching a movie with them? Cant see it taking off imo. Now meeting up with them online and shooting them or setting them on fire, thats something I can relate to.

gevaudansbeast wrote: No, not at all, but the option to have it there is good. Think of the families that actually do "family night"...when the family is all around the world, maybe they want to do a family night again. Anyway, it is a good feature. More features are good, just because some can't see a use/need for them, doesn't mean others won't.

Pretty hard to do 'Family Night' when it's 7pm at your place and 2am and 10am in the others. Interacting with someone else via a game or some other type of mechanism has a social component to it, but synchronizing time to ignore each other and watch a laggy, less than full-screen movie??? Nah, just can't see that being remotely interesting to the vast majority of people. It's pointless in home, and it'll be pointless on Live!

BuzzLightyear wrote: watch a laggy, less than full-screen movie

Eh?

But yeah, doesn't seem like a useful feature to me.

Egor wrote: Eh? But yeah, doesn't seem like a useful feature to me.

The way these things are always demonstrated is as a subwindow of your full screen so you feel like you're in a theatre with other people. If you go full screen, well you're just watching a movie at the same time as someone else. You can organize that with an e-mail. It's not socializing. Based on this concept, I could say I'm partaking in a orgy because other people happen to be performing my activity at the same time.

"At its core, people are just very social people"

Seems to overlook the fact that people would more often prefer to sit down and watch TV than to gather around the scrabble board, or bake a cake together. I don't think they understand what TV's have done for people. It gives them a place to go into their own world and relax. People don't want to come home from a days socialising with their work colleagues only to have more of it forced on them by an interactive entertainment unit. They want to pick up the remote, turn on CSI and switch their brain off.

BuzzLightyear wrote: The way these things are always demonstrated is as a subwindow of your full screen so you feel like you're in a theatre with other people. If you go full screen, well you're just watching a movie at the same time as someone else. You can organize that with an e-mail. It's not socializing. Based on this concept, I could say I'm partaking in a orgy because other people happen to be performing my activity at the same time.

No I don't think that's how it's meant to work. You watch the movie full screen, but can use voice chat to talk through it (or rustle popcorn, for the truly authentic experience) and ruin it for everyone else.

At least they're trying

Perfect dark remake?? ZOMG