This Week In The Business: Xbox One Stand-Off

“We’re going to sell more Xbox One S’s next year than we will X. That’s always been part of the plan.” — Xbox boss Phil Spencer talking about the continued importance of the Xbox One S as it puts a focus on Xbox One X at E3.

QUOTE | “I think that the [Xbox One X] price point [at $US499] is too high. Consoles have historically failed at this price point, and consumers seem unwilling to accept anything over $US399.” — Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter discussing the impact of the Xbox One X price along with other analysts who seem to agree it will be a “tough sell.”

QUOTE | “It’s worse than going to an amusement park. There you’d wait like 30 minutes, but here it’s like two hours.” — One of several fans reacting to the first ever E3 open to the public, where people were forced to wait in very, very long lines to play the hottest upcoming titles.

STAT | 68,400 — The number of people at E3 2017, boosted by 15,000 ticketed consumers; the ESA says, however, that E3 could leave Los Angeles for another city by 2020.

QUOTE | “We think innovation can really bring life back into this market.” — Laurent Malville, creative director on Ubisoft’s new toys-to-life project called Starlink: Battle for Atlas, speaking confidently about the prospects of the toys-to-life genre, which seems to have waned in recent years.

QUOTE | “When I finally met Mr Miyamoto, the creator of my favourite game and the inspiration of my whole career, I felt like I was divided in two… I was split between the urge to ask for an autograph, and the responsibility to represent the game in the most professional way.” — David Soliani, creative director at Ubisoft Milan, describing his reaction when he was allowed to pitch Mario + Rabbids to the creator of Mario himself.

QUOTE | “I fully anticipate there will be plenty of games from ID@Xbox developers that fully support [Xbox One X].” — Xbox director of ID@Xbox Chris Charla, explaining that indies will be able to take advantage of the super-powered console and that Microsoft doesn’t like rushing indies to market such as Studio MDHR, working on Cuphead.

QUOTE | “What if you wanted to build a new Battlefield experience and you fed it every war story ever written? Could it tell you new and interesting and personal stories on a realtime basis every time you engage?” — EA CEO Andrew Wilson explaining some of the research being done on neural networks and machine learning at the company’s new SEED division and how that could impact game design.

QUOTE | “After I finished Brothers, I wanted to make another game that pushed the boundaries of telling stories without compromising gameplay.” — Hazelight’s Josef Fares, who previously developed Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, revealing his new co-op adventure for the EA Originals program, called A Way Out.

QUOTE | “Developing video games was just an obvious path of storytelling. But with Virtual Reality, it became a necessity if we wanted to tune into the next thing coming.” — SpectreVision VP of digital, social and gaming Kyle McCullough, on partnering Elijah Wood’s production company with Ubisoft to build new VR psychological thriller Transference.