Making The Xbox Work for Game Developers and Publishers By: Akbar Ali contact:

Hopes of the Xbox developers Easy to use Stable platform No faulty Microsoft incentives Easy and simple to develop for Excellent set of software development kit’s and tools. Small licensee fee Economical development kit Microsoft: “how the hell are we going to make money”. Us: “that’s your problem” :-)

The Reality's of Game Development, profit margins and consumer market Games are taking longer to make, and the costs are going up. Game team size is becoming larger and larger. Profit margins are one thing, and money coming in and going out are another. Some companies proclaim they are making millions of dollars, yet there development costs and marketing are costing more. Example of this would be Sega’ with the DreamCast. The DreamCast is turning out to be a big time loser for Sega and it’s investors. Maybe not for consumers, but hey; we are in the back end :-|

Consumer Markets With the XBOX people are presuming that for the most of us, the target audience is going to be age bracket. I propose by stating, “this audience is not where the money is to be made”. Let’ alone sold units. See Next Slide... (I hope you are not offended by...)

This is what age bracket would much rather spend there money and time with; and on :-) grin CD BURNING and MP3’s

Truth

It comes down to this, the big market is kids Proof of this concept is Nintendo, and the extremely profitable games and consoles they have released If you are going to be targeting that “age group”, your best luck is to shoot with a sports title. Those seem to be the few that people in that age bracket actually play and “buy”

The KIDS market For those that do not hang around, own, or contact and play with children, the below will give a good example of the things “KIDS” do. :-)

Do YOU see a Pattern here? The fact of the matter is, young children OWN there parents. The next time you go to the mall, sit for a few minutes in a toy store. You would be surprised at the conversations you would here. Another example is the fact; “how many parent’s want to drive there kids to the store to buy another pokemon card?” hands please?; like I mentioned, children own and have total control of there parents. Well at least 100 million kids own there parents. Gameboy’s just hit a new record of achieving 100 million sold units!!! It’s been a long time since the first game boy was released, and it’s still selling strong. It’ beat profit margins of the Playstation, Nintendo 64, and the DreamCast.

What does this tell you Kids buy games. Kids make developers wealthy. Kids own there parents (grin). Kids are fun, and most kids don’t cry, bitch, steal, pirate games and proclaim that a certain textures didn’t match the foreground! And that the ai, didn’t “act” like a person. Kids is where the future market lays. If you are game designer, note this. 20 years from now, those “teenagers” that played your game won’t be talking about your “creation”. You have to make an “impression”, or “footprint” on a person when they are young. Take my generation, although we have seen good games (half-life and mdk2), 20 years from now, it will be just another game. We will talk about the games that made history to use. Super Mario Brothers 1 and DUCK HUNT :-) game designers? Don’t you want to make an long lasting impression on the people that play your games?

Take on Technology and “wowing” people. Quite a few game company’s think that if you have the newest and baddest graphics engine you will make enormous profit margins, your game will be proclaimed as a instant success, etc.. I have two words for people that have this mentality. Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. (please go to and see how poorly these games are doing) A game “based on technology” just can’t be a hit today. The industry has progressed. Back when quake 1 was first released this was possible, but now it is just an old memory. live by these words, and you might end up lasting as long and hopefully as profitable in the business as Nintendo. "We want technology for the sake of the story, not for its own sake. When you look back, say 10 years from now, current technology will seem quaint" Pixars' Edwin Catmull.

To change. Evaluating our selves, our thinking and mentality, is a difficult task, but to survive in this industry, we must adapt! ( I am presuming there are no Nintendo developers here :-) ) Anyways, for those of you who are scared of what lays’ ahead. Just think of it like this. “it might be fun :-)” And with this mentality and creating games along this title. Heck, we might even make “a little money” I guess in closing, I would just like to say, the best games and ideas were not inspired by money, they where most often inspired by a “love” or “idea” they thought would be “fun”. Although, most of us are “technology geeks” we MUST find a balance

Copyright’s In no particular order. If I have missed out a company(written it wrong?), please inform me so that I may change this. Since this “IS” informal, please don’t bother with it, unless you see this at an “official” site or conference. Nintendo Rareware Microsoft Durex Condoms Coors Disney