Robbie Bach Interview

In an interview with the Mercury News, Robbie Bach, the President of Entertainment and Devices at Microsoft, he talks about loads of Microsoft stuff including the Zune Player, but more importantly about the Halo Movie.

Q: The Halo movie isn’t going so well. That might have been another avenue for Microsoft to pursue in entertainment. As reported, they just decided to redo the contract?
A: Universal and Fox wanted to redo some things between us and others involved. We said if that is the direction you want to go, we would rather pause. Our view is we want something great to be done. You can’t do a budget Halo movie. You have to be serious about it.

Q: Somebody estimated that your division has lost like $3.8 billion or something. Most companies would have given up a long time before they went through anywhere near that much money. Do you guys have a blank check? Is there some point where you reach the end of the rope and somebody says, "You know, you guys have spent way too much money and we're not seeing an end to it?"
A: No. I think the things you have to look at is you have to look at, sure, the dollar investment, and the asset value that's created and then look at the P&L. You have to look at all three of those things. So, yes, the amount of investment, in particular on Xbox, has been a large number. So, compare that to the alternatives and some of the alternatives would have been, "Well, go buy somebody big." So, you could have looked and said, "Go buy Nintendo." And Nintendo at the time would have been a $15 billion acquisition. So, by any stretch of the imagination, a much bigger investment. And if I look at the asset we've built, it's a different asset than Nintendo has, and they certainly have got a great company, but it's an asset that we can be proud of. So, the first thing I'd say is, we went in knowing it was going to be a big investment, but the size of the marketplace and the importance to what we're doing justify that.


Q: I was happy to see the Halo investment step up there with multiple games. I always wondered if Microsoft had enough soldiers on the battlefield …
A: So to speak.

Q: As far as having enough game developers and games in the works. Microsoft hasn’t exploited Halo the way that Electronic Arts would.
A: The balance we have to strike with a property like Halo is taking advantage of the intellectual property itself and not wearing out the franchise. Electronic Arts has an advantage in a way with sports where it is self-renewing. And it’s not even their doing. It’s the nature of the sport, with new players, new stadiums, and new teams. In something like Halo, you have to look at how do we maximize the intellectual property. We could do eight things, but that’s probably too many. It’s also important for us to have more than just Halo. That is why Viva Piñata is important. That’s why Forza Motorsport 2 is important. It’s why Project Gotham Racing is important. It’s why Gears of War is important. It’s important for our first-party group to have a range of titles.