You have probably seen the ads. Microsoft just launched the Kinect and, not so quietly, have launched a new user interface paradigm for the living room. The Kinect is cool, and I'll do some future posts on how it's put together and where it is going. But, quietly, without any viral marketing campaign or mass media buys, Don Mattrick, who is now the President of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, or as it's known inside of Microsoft, IEB, completed, perhaps, the largest game content launch. Ever.
Oh, and don't forget:
- XBOX Live for Windows Phone 7
- XBOX "Fall 2010 XBOX 360 console software update"
(This needs a code name like "Big Panda" or something like that)
Browser games, check; games search, check; social games, check; PC games app store, check; mobile games, check; TV games (XBOX), check. Launch in November before Christmas, check.
Perhaps we should have bought Hasbro and launched some new board games so we could get another UI covered. Holy cow. Really, who else could do this?
People often ask me, why do you work at Microsoft? And I respond, because I enjoy a multitier bureaucracy and jumping rope in a tar pit. No, it's because of scale. Impact at scale. And this is it.
Microsoft has over 80% penetration in households with the PC and there are over 30 million XBOX's in place. This is a nice platform to launch content and at Microsoft, Don has brought all gaming (music and video) content into one division, under one roof.
My mission at Microsoft is to help Startups plug into this kind of scale. It means everything to a startup and with the right content, a solid business, and absolutely fantastic execution, it can happen. So, go, create, code, build, fund, and then, ping me, there may be something interesting we can do together.
I'll be at CES 2011, and virtually every game event in 2011, I'd love to meet you.
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