14 DAY TRIAL // The Xbox 360 is in a very good spot right now, both in terms of sales and of popularity. It has outsold its Arch rival, the PlayStation 3, in quite a lot of territories and countries, which in the past were loyal to Sony's console. Now, with a major price cut and a lot of bundles available, the Xbox 360 is set out to be one of the best-selling products of this holiday season.
But even if quite a lot of changes have been made to the North American console, the development team is “just beginning to scratch the surface” in terms of the experience it can deliver to the user, according to Shane Kim, the man in charge of the strategy and business development for the Xbox 360. Kim went on to say that, although the redesigned interface dubbed the New Xbox Experience was a big step forward, Microsoft wouldn't stop there and would continue to bring new things to its console.
Kim said that his role was to supervise and decide the way the Xbox 360 was going, essentially deciding what the console “wants to be when it grows up.” The executive went on to say that the partnership made with Netflix wouldn't be the last one, and that more deals between Microsoft and other content providers, like YouTube or Hulu, might be made in order to deliver a higher-quality entertainment experience.
“The work we are doing now is trying to understand what is of interest to the broader set of customers beyond the traditional game audience that would take advantage of the interactive platform we have,” Kim stated. He further said that a possible Internet browser for the Xbox 360 was out of the question as “we are about delivering higher-quality experience, not having the most varied experiences.”
So it definitely looks like the Xbox 360 will have a lot of aces up its sleeve in the year to come. Kim is very confident about the future of the console, and, coupled with the statement made by Chris Lewis, the VP of Interactive Entertainment at Microsoft, who said that this generation would be the longest, we can expect the Xbox 360 to be in the center of attention for quite some time.