Eurogamer writes: Eurogamer caught up with John Schappert a day later to talk about 360 hardware sales, the Wii and PS3, how the XNA, Xbox Live and Zune relationships will work, and of course what happens now that HD-DVD has died on its arse.
Eurogamer: Let's start with your keynote speech yesterday. No mention of hardware stats - do you have any updated hardware sales figures?
John Schappert: I think that we've sold 18 million, the last time I've checked. 18 million hardware units worldwide.
Eurogamer: Where would you say? The one that's often mentioned to me is places where PlayStation is strong, such as Southern Europe.
John Schappert: Yes, you hit the nail on the head. We look, and we are hitting the ball out of the park in North America, and I think that there's regions of Europe where we're not doing as well as we'd like to do, and we have room for improvement. Those are renewed areas and key areas of focus for us.
Eurogamer: But in the interest of choice, in the pursuit of choice, which is something that you espouse, surely the next obvious thing to do now that this has been decided is to make a Blu-ray drive?
John Schappert: What I'll say is we have nothing to comment there. We have no plans to announce or anything like that right now. But I'd also urge you to look at the attach rate for the HD-DVD drive.
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This looks like a great way to play.
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This guy needs a fist in face... Just shut the hell up. I've heard PR talk and I've heard PR talk, believe me. This guy takes his cake and your cake then eats 'em both.
Thats crazy!, this dude trolls every 360 thread just after its posted, every single one of them no matter when the thread is posted. Always a few minutes after being submitted no matter what part of the day every day. WoW!.
John Schappert seems a concrete person.
No PR BS but solid facts.
Eurogamer: This week we've learned that HD-DVD as a standard is going to be no more. I guess you must still have bundles of HD-DVD drives lying around in warehouses - are you going to sell those off for cheap?
John Schappert: I don't know what the plans are on that. It was a low attach rate. It wasn't one of the high-selling accessories if you will. The people who bought it knew what they were buying. What I will say is that I think it circles back - it's about a gaming machine we have that actually is the best gaming machine out there, which plays 7 of the 10 top-rated games, has the highest attach rate in history of 7 games purchased per console.
Eurogamer: You say it's a gaming platform primarily, but you did want to have the HD-DVD drive - it's not like it was forced on you or anything -
John Schappert: We wanted to offer people a choice -
Eurogamer: Sure, so now with that in mind, ignoring the fact it's the competition, would you do a Blu-ray drive and are you going to do one?
John Schappert: I don't think we have any comment on that right now or any plans, but my focus is I'd rather give you community gaming and contribute to more games you can play and focus on the fact that you're walking in, you're buying that box and it plays great games and has the best online service. I think the fact that it does movies and sometimes TV shows in other territories is great but not the primary reason.
Eurogamer: But in the interest of choice, in the pursuit of choice, which is something that you espouse, surely the next obvious thing to do now that this has been decided is to make a Blu-ray drive?
John Schappert: What I'll say is we have nothing to comment there. We have no plans to announce or anything like that right now. But I'd also urge you to look at the attach rate for the HD-DVD drive.
Eurogamer: So you're saying that given that it wasn't as popular as it could have been...
John Schappert: It was a 3 percent attach rate. So again, when you're saying 'the obvious thing', you also have to take into account how did the other accessory do when you look at the future. We have nothing to comment right now on that and my focus is how we make Live better, how we get more great games and how do we empower the community. That's what I wake up and think about, and it keeps me awful busy.
Eurogamer: [The PR gets ready to kick me out.] Last, last thing - have you played Gears of War 2?
John Schappert: I've not.