Microsoft: Releasing Games Simultaneously on PC and 360 Would ‘Shoot Ourselves in the Foot’
Microsoft Game Studios European business director Peter Zetterberg has revealed that simultaneously releasing a major first-party game on both PC and Xbox 360 in Germany would “basically shoot [Microsoft] in the foot” due to the popularity of the PC platform.
“If we launched a Halo game on PC and 360 in Germany simultaneously, 80 per cent of sales would be on the PC,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “We basically shoot ourselves in the foot by allowing the German market to choose to play the PC version.”
It may seem that Microsoft is intentionally limiting the PC market to further its console business – a complaint which Blizzard raised – the executive notes that both platforms are “equally important” on a global scale. He, however, notes that the PC is “dominating” because of much wider uses and that they are forced to make Xbox 360 games there.
Despite all this, Zetterberg reveals that it doesn’t let that get in the way when he’s dealing with game pitches.
“I’ve had an RTS game pitched to me on the 360,” he said. “As they pitch, clearly this is not a good idea to do it on the Xbox 360. But their argument was that they could potentially sell more on the console because it’s more of a mass market machine than the PC. We suggested that they came back with a PC pitch. “