De mannetjes en vrouwtjes van CaVG besloten dat het tijd was om weer eens wat meer info over de Xbox los te gaan peuteren bij de man achter de Xbox J. Allard. Voor dit interview kwam niet alleen hij maar ook de Europese director of publishing Michel Ca ius opdraven en zij beantwoorden een heel aantal vragen over onder andere de Europese launch en de online mogelijkheden van de console.

Over dat laatste wist Allard ons te vertellen dat we nog dit jaar online zullen kunnen gamen met de Xbox en dat er voor het eind van het jaar maar liefst 6 titels beschikbaar zullen zijn die dit ondersteunen. Hiervan zijn het reeds aangekondigde en Unreal Champoinship en Phantasy Star Oline er 2 van.Yeah, we posted it on the site. It's very cool. It's no secret that Europe's an incredibly difficult territory to actually get this sort of thing working. Would you agree that Microsoft is better placed than anyone else to get this up and running?Ca ius: Yes.Allard: Yeah. Let's think about a couple of things. First, the nice thing about online is that it's Microsoft's comfort zone. There was a lot of concern and question and doubt in the industry about whether or not Microsoft could do Xbox, could do the off-line thing: could Microsoft work with third-party publishers, could Microsoft get the content it needed, could Microsoft build a third-party studio? Those were the questions people were asking. Asked and answered. That's the good news to come out of the US launch. Anybody that was doubting us on those fronts, we've been able to prove [we can do it]. Well, now it gets a little bit easier for us in one regard, because now we're in the software side of the busine . Our experience with Windows and the Internet, with MSN with the Internet gaming Zone and with PC online gaming, really makes online a really natural stretch for us. We also are the only guys who made the commitment in the console for online, so we have the Ethernet and we have the hard disc. If you add that up we have a great online plan. I have more engineers working on online on my team than I do working on the hardware. They've been working on online [for Xbox] now for 18 months. To make that dream video come true is a lot of hard work in the background, but it's work we know how to do and it's work that the rest of the company will help us to do.So we're in good shape, and the conversations that we've had with the broadband providers, independent of territory, and they hear what we're planning on the backend of they say, "This is the killer app". Broadband penetration is not limited because of capital expenditures. In a year-and-a-half in the US 95% of all homes with cable will be able to subscribe to broadband. Projections are low because there's no demand, because there's no killer app. They look at this and they say, "This is the killer app."Al met al een heel erg intere ant interview waar het een en ander uit de doeken wordt gedaan. Een must-read voor iedereen die geïntere eerd is in de machine die het gevecht moet aangaan met de PS2 en de Gamecube. Voor het hele interview klik je op dit woordje