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Interview with senior director of marketing (MGS)
Posted By: Hijack <prego_2000@hotmail.com>	Date: 1/29/04 6:57 a.m.
Found this article on Evilavatar.com; "Waiting game: 'Halo 2' among top MIA titles" "... Jan. 29, 2004 Waiting game: 'Halo 2' among top MIA titles By Paul Hyman "Halo 2" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Case in point: "Halo 2," the sequel to the Xbox launch title and that console system's top seller. "Halo 2's" developer, Microsoft's Bungie Studios, will swear up and down that the scheduled release date is and always has been "whenever it's ready," but the first-person shooter was originally listed on the Microsoft site as a Christmas 2003 release. Then it was pushed back to March 2004. And, at this month's Consumer Electronics Show, chief Xbox wrangler Robbie Bach said, "We're going to ship it when it's ready. That might be the first half of 2004, it might not." Indeed, the Xbox product catalog on the Microsoft site has now substituted "TBA" for the former "spring release." Pity the poor marketing director who has to take aim at this moving target and make it a roaring success. In this case, that's Beth Featherstone, senior director of marketing for Microsoft games. "Lucky for us, "Halo 2" isn't a game that has to come out at Christmas," she said. "For many games -- for 75% of them -- coming out at Christmas is really critical. That's when consumers are in the stores and when gift-buying happens. But "Halo 2" will have big sales regardless of when it's released." According to Featherstone, "Halo 2" just happens to be one huge game, with 20,000 lines of dialogue in it. "And that's just one illustration of its size," she said. "Bungie is a perfectionist and wants it as polished as it can be. If a game is innovative, if it pushes the technical limitations of the platform, then it puts risk into your schedule. But because we know we can ship at any time and will do really well sales-wise, we'll take our time and get it to be the game we want it to be. It's the most important title on the Xbox platform and it needs to be right." Bungie may want to keep polishing, but surely there will come a time when enough's enough. Featherstone says that time hasn't come yet, but it will. " 'Halo 2' impacts the other games in the Xbox portfolio," she explained. "Nobody wants to ship just before it or in its shadow; they want to give each game some breathing room." So, at some undetermined point, Microsoft will pick a date and tell Bungie that the game needs to be good enough to ship on that date. Period..."

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Message Index

Interview with senior director of marketing (MGS)	Hijack	1/29/04 6:57 a.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	donttalk	1/29/04 7:10 a.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	Ross Mills [subnova]	1/29/04 7:12 a.m.
Re: Interestingly enough...	ajenteks	1/29/04 10:39 a.m.
Re: Interestingly enough...	User	1/29/04 11:50 a.m.
All they need to put is "TBA 2004" *NM*	ajenteks	1/29/04 8:37 p.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	Shish @ School	1/29/04 1:34 p.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	User	1/29/04 2:13 p.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	Shish @ School	1/29/04 2:20 p.m.
Re: Interview with senior director of marketing (M	Druff	1/29/04 3:05 p.m.