GDC 2005: The Vision of Microsoft's J. Allard, Part 1

On the last day of this year's Game Developer's Conference (GDC) we got a chance to sit down with Microsoft's J. Allard, the force behind Xbox and XNA, to ask him a few questions about the industry and the future of gaming. Here is part one of our fascinating interview.

J Allard was named one of The Hollywood Reporter's Top 35 Entertainment Execs Under 35 in 2003.

Mr. Allard, thanks for taking the time to meet with us. We realize you have a very busy schedule, so we will start right in with the questions...

Sony's PSP is due out this month, and Nintendo seems to be having some success with the DS. It was rumored earlier this year that Halo was going to be put onto the Gizmondo, a handheld from Tiger Telematics. One thing our readers have been asking about is how Microsoft is going to approach the handheld market, and if there is in fact a strategy for that at all?

Here's what I'll say about that. As I said in the keynote address , we are on the verge of a major transition in the games industry, from 3D to HD (high definition). From the 2D era to the 3D era the math really changed - the design changed, the tools changed, the process changed, and our teams changed. From 3D to HD there will just as great a shift. More than any other platforms, the two platforms that are going to motivate that shift are the Windows gaming platform, sort of our innovation engine, and the Xbox living room platform.

We are very focused on those two platforms right now. I'll never say never on the handheld thing, but it's not our focus right now. The handheld market for us is going to be more of a downstream thing. I want to be able to take the kinds of things that will be pioneered by the era, and take them with me. Right now with handheld games you can take 3D era games with you. I'm focused on the HD era. So let's get the HD era started and bring it everywhere we can. That's our philosophy.

What is your take on Nintendo's strategy? Do you think they are ignoring more mature gamers?

Well my primary focus is obviously our game plan. And we have a great play book, an amazing team. We've worked hard for the last three years to gear up for next season. And next season, when the HD era starts, the score will be Sony: zero; Microsoft: zero; Nintendo: zero. So I have really been focused on that.

I will say this though, Nintendo has phenomenal intellectual property, phenomenal talent in the game creations space, and they do really well with the younger demographic. You have two strategies in that kind of position. You can either focus exclusively on the younger demographic, and really get it right, like Disney, FisherPrice. I mean, pick your companies. You can really aim and hone your product line, or you can say we are going to be more of a platform company and we are going very mainstream.

We want the content creators to dictate who is enamored with our platform by their experiences. And that's our focus, which is very much one of a platform, where we say, "look, we want to hear what the world's game creators have to say and then build the most amazing platform for them to realize their visions." It turns out that when you listen to everybody's visions, you hear visions that are appealing to six- and seven-year-olds, and you hear visions of people who are trying to drive gaming for 45-year-olds.

That's why I think we have a broader spectrum of content - because we listen to all of those game creators, and those creators that we also have on staff in our first party teams also spread the spectrum. We have Rare on one end of the spectrum; and we have Bungie on the other end.

You mentioned multi-core processors in your keynote address as well. How is Microsoft going to help developers rise to the challenges that multi-core processors present?

Well, the first thing you have to do is put aside the multi-core processors and say, we're shifting from an Intel and Nvidia architecture to an IBM and ATI architecture. Wow, that could be really hard. So what we are actually doing is insulating a lot of that pain for the developer by using the same operating system, the same tools, the same APIs that we did last generation.

You know the PC industry is going multi-core. One thing that I didn't mention during the keynote is that all of our Alpha kits are actually based on Macintosh G5 dual-processors. So for the last year, developers have been using our operating system, our APIs, connecting to our service, using our controllers, and thinking different with dual-processor G5s. It turns out that there are two different chips in the Mac, but we are going to put them on the same die.