Interview with Stephen McGill - MS's UK head of gaming and entertainment

December 13th, 2007, 00:14 Posted By: wraggster

Microsoft's UK head of gaming and entertainment talks about the rollout of Xbox Live Video Marketplace in the UK at the launch event in London.

* GSUK: Are you pleased with the fact that Xboxes, which as you say may be on many people's lists, are actually available in stores? Is that something you've worked hard towards?
* SM: It is. We're struggling to meet the demand from every retailer every week. I think we've probably done it better than some of our cohorts out there, but it's a weekly thing--we're getting stock in, we're getting it straight out to the retailers who need it. Obviously we've got three different varieties: We've got the Arcade, the main 360, and the Elite. They're going to different types of customers, and different retail outlets.
It's a fun time, Christmas; part of the difficulty is actually finding enough vans to ship it all around, so a lot of planning goes into that.

* GSUK: In terms of the movies, you mentioned there will be 40 titles by Christmas. For the rollout next year, will it be one movie at a time, or will it be big chunks? How do you see that happening?
* SM: It's difficult to say--it probably won't be as organised as that. We're starting with 27 for tomorrow, and then over the next week or two, we'll be adding more and more stuff. Some of the team--they'll have Christmas Day off, but then they'll be back in the office ingesting more content for us. I think we'll have, obviously, things like Ocean's 13, and some more Harry Potter stuff, early in 2008. There's kind of a window between when you can go and see a movie, rent it on DVD, then it can go on video-on-demand, then when it goes onto satellite [TV], then when it goes onto normal free TV, and then when it comes back as back catalogue for anyone to use.
We've got an amazing partner with Warner Bros, and they've got a great back catalogue of stuff, of great movies ready for launch. We'll have more of that content from them coming on board and then we'll have more partnerships as time goes by.

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6183862....stnews;title;1

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