While attending Fan Expo Canada 2013 COG had the opportunity to chat with Jeff Rivait, Xbox Platform Marketing Manager for Xbox Canada. With the hands-on time I had with the Xbox One during Fan Expo, and the information that has come to light in recent weeks, it was a good time to put Jeff under the spotlight for some more clarification for fellow gamers out there.
COG: So the main question I have been asking both camps lately is: “For people on the fence, why should I get an Xbox One?”
Jeff Rivait: I think right now Xbox is really trying to start a new generation of both gaming and entertainment, but I think the important key is that we are leading with games. I think coming out of E3 we’ve seen that the Xbox One is the home of the best award winning exclusive titles starting with Titanfall, which is a new exclusive to Xbox One. Then there is Forza Motorsport 5, the highest rated racing franchise of its generation. We are bringing back a classic like Killer Instinct and then there is Ryse: Son of Rome. It’s also working with our publishing partners, like Activision for Call of Duty and EA for Battlefield, to make sure it is better for the Xbox One whether it’s getting exclusive content first or things like we recently announced with Call of Duty where we’ll have dedicated servers on Xbox Live for this game which is going to be huge for multiplayer fans.
So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg with games. When you consider what we can then do with Kinect on every console including 1080p as well as the brand new voice recognition or the power of all the servers we have for creating the cloud to do things like cloud computing for the Drivatar AI features on Forza. And then there’s Smart Glass, it works on devices you already own, whether its Windows, Android or iOS; we are working to bring some really compelling companion experiences and you are going to see that when you check out Dead Rising 3 which is also an exclusive.
When you consider entertainment, we have an HDMI IN on the back of the console and an IR blaster port; this enables you to plug in your cable box into the Xbox One and that becomes your input one entertainment device. Your live TV is coming through there, a Blu-ray optical disk drive to play your Blu-rays and the IR blaster lets you control your home theatre set up like you could with the Harmony remote. Xbox One could become your go-to game and entertainment device with fast switching multitasking and all sorts of features like that.
COG: You mentioned the HDMI IN. I hear a lot of people say that “It won’t work in Canada” or “I won’t be able to plug my cable box in and have those features”. Are these features available day one for Canadians or is it available at a later date?
Jeff Rivait: The HDMI IN will work, just some of the features and guides will have a regional rollout, so we haven’t announced or determined which regions will roll out first, but things like that may happen over time. I think as the life cycle of Xbox 360 has come along we have shown that Canadians are getting things a lot sooner and we’ll maintain that commitment of making sure Canadians have as close of an experience as our US friends as quickly as possible.
COG: So right now Xbox Live is pretty amazing, I think most people would agree that it is the best online service for gaming for consoles at the very least. What improvements could be coming down the pipeline for Xbox Live Gold?
Jeff Rivait: There’s a bunch, I think ultimately one of the big things we announced at E3, which was kind of the centre piece of it all, is just the cloud computing capability of adding 300,000 thousand servers for Xbox Live.
COG: Some people when they heard 300,000 they thought it might have been a mistake, did they really mean to say 300,000?
Jeff Rivait: No, that’s the right number of zero’s. It’s something that only a company like Microsoft could do for Xbox with the computing powers and partners that we have and platforms like Windows Azure. I think that’s just the beginning and you’re going to see that at launch with games like Forza taking pretty big advantage of that. As well Call of Duty will be able to improve multiplayer and matchmaking through smart match to make sure that you are getting into multiplayer matches with people you like to play with based on your preferences. There is also multitasking through the console, so if you are waiting to find a multiplayer match you can actually be doing something complete else; once that match is ready you are switching back in an instant right back into the game.
Achievements have been huge too, something we started on Xbox 360, and your Gamerscore is going to carry over and we are going to expand that system. There are also things like the game DVR. If something cool just happened in Forza, like you took a sweet turn and you won the race, you can record that clip and share it over Xbox Live. Powering it with Twitch TV to do live streaming, the list goes on and on. This is basically just the beginning. What you saw with Xbox 360 when we launched it and eight years later it is completely different. Having Xbox One starting where it is today the sky is the limit and it is a future proof console for where it can go in ten years.
COG: So one of the big features for me, having ordered an Xbox One myself, is the cloud gaming, so what is the best way you can explain how that is going to work for gamers, not necessarily what is actually going on in there but what kind of features they can see from it?
Jeff Rivait: Two examples I mentioned earlier Call of Duty and Forza 5. With Call of Duty having dedicated servers in the cloud it is what enables faster matchmaking. There is also more secure matchmaking as we control the servers. In Forza 5 it’s a system we call Drivatar and Turn 10 and Microsoft Studios likes to think of this as the death of traditional AI. So if you are playing a previous Forza game, or any game where you are stuck with pre-programmed AI profiles that you kind of learn what they are going to do, they may not be realistic. With Drivatar the Cloud is going to learn how you race, it’s going to learn how your friends race and those are going to become the new AI that you are going to experience whether in single player or multiplayer. Similarly, if you just put in a four hour session of Forza 5 its going to upload all your gameplay data to the Cloud and that becomes part of your profile and you can be off your console but your friends and your Drivatar could still be racing earning you experience even though you may not be playing.
COG: So you touched base on the game DVR and there was a little bit of uproar in the community about it being behind the Xbox Live Gold paywall. Is there going to be a local way to record as opposed to it being uploaded to the Cloud or is that something a developer would have to put on disk so that they can just keep it stored on their harddrive?
Jeff Rivait: That’s a great question. To be honest I’m not familiar with the completeness of the upload studio. I imagine there could be a local version but I cannot confirm that though, I can look into it and get back to you on that.
COG: If you had to pick one game that people should buy at launch, ok, you can mention two or three, what would be your personal choice?
Jeff Rivait: You said three, so I’m going to go with three…for a bunch of different reasons. I think Titanfall is probably my number one game, and it is developed by Respawn Entertainment, former Infinity Ward guys, and published by EA but it’s an Xbox exclusive. It’s a really fresh take on an FPS, it’s looking like an incredible game. The other two that are tied for me personally are Forza 5 and Dead Rising 3. Forza just because it looks incredible, the cars look insane and its got some really cool unique Xbox One features like the cloud computing. Then there’s Dead Rising 3, again that will be an Xbox One exclusive developed by Capcom (Editors Note: In Vancouver, B.C. too), that’s going to be really cool. I love Zombies and I’ve loved the previous two Dead Risings in terms of just how over the top they are and that it is a fun open world Zombie action game. It’s also going to use Kinect and Smart Glass in some really unique and neat ways that I think will enable a lot of people to see the potential for Kinect and Smart Glass in future applications using these technologies.
COG: With Kinect, I love it, we use it every week in our house, and my kids still play Kinectimals. What is a Kinect title being released around launch that would be good for them?
Jeff Rivait: I think Zoo Tycoon is something that we have announced. I think it’s perfect for people who are going to jump in. People who typically buy consoles day one are hardcore gamers but having a breadth of titles, ones like this, allows the whole family to get engaged in gaming right off the bat but not have to wait years for broad field titles to come out. So Zoo Tycoon is going to be great, as it’s got the history of the Zoo Tycoon franchise plus some learning from Frontier Development. The Kinect is going to make it a compelling experience for Xbox One for the whole family. You also have Kinect Sports Rivals coming out later in the spring, which will be fun with the improved Kinect sensor and tracking. It’s going to be incredible as it offers new experiences in that franchise.
We would like to thank Jeff for taking some time to chat with us during the madness of Fan Expo and answering some questions about the Xbox One.
