Peter Moore shows Nintendo-envy, embraces casual games
- February 28, 2007 11:04 AM PST
- Email this!
With Nintendo leading the way in casual games, Microsoft's Peter Moore explains his company's strategy to grab their fair share of the market.
By Eugene Huang
In a recent interview with Game Informer, Microsoft corporate vice president Peter Moore and newly-appointed strategic advisor Don Mattrick spoke to the magazine regarding Mattrick's new position with the company after leaving the position of president of EA's Worldwide.
But the focus of the interview soon shifted to Moore's assurance of Microsoft's intent to win more of the casual market. In a rare example of exhibiting deference to a competitor within the industry, Moore praised Nintendo in its dedication to creating a "fun" gaming experience:
"[S]ince the day I saw Iwata-san pull the nunchuck controller out from under his podium a few years ago at TGS, I've always realized that was the right thing for Nintendo to have to do for what they needed to do to be successful in this next generation."
Earlier in the interview, Moore had been asked to comment on the Xbox and Xbox 360's status as machines for the hardcore gamer. In response, Moore stated that this was a deliberate intent on Microsoft's part from back in 2003 and 2004, and that he appreciates the support of the hardcore crowd, calling them a very important component to the "overall ecosystem" of gaming.
But Moore eventually realized that their "strengths with Xbox became [their] Achilles' heel with Xbox 360" when the idea that the casual games market would be the next focal point in the industry. He claims that, even during a time before the Nintendo Wii was still only an experimental project code-named Revolution, it had been Microsoft's intent to develop a strategy that would grab a bigger slice of the casual pie.
The first step would be the console's outer design, which changed from black to white, or what Moore calls a "brighter and more optimistic brand." Next came the games:
"We've done an incredible amount of work with the third-party development community to make sure we're well positioned to have all of the right content, the E and T content that's going to be important in the out years in our platform."
"Nintendo has done a tremendous job in capturing, in bringing back funif you willto the gaming platforms," he continued. "But we've got a few tricks up our sleeve as well to be able to do that."
Mattrick concurs.
"Think about what Microsoft has accomplished in the console space in the last six years," he added.
