With just a couple of days more for us to enjoy Ensemble’s swan song, Halo Wars, Microsoft has released the next dev diary, or ViDoc as Bungie christened them, to get the hype train rolling for the next game set in the Haloverse. After introducing us to the Spartans last time around, the new diary focuses on how the team focused on developing a strategy game that was exclusive to the consoles, including working with the vast amounts of material available in the Halo universe, getting the controls just right for “consolification” and meeting all the expectations of the fans and (former) skeptics such as myself.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice! And if that fails, an inexpensive GPS, Google Maps and front-row tickets could probably do wonders. But how do you get to Jaspreet Bindra, the man holding all the strings to Microsoft India’s Entertainment & Devices Division? Well, after trying for over four months through the usual PR channels, we finally decided to use my Xbox MVP status to try and spend some quality time with the newly appointed Country Manager and ask some really hard hitting questions that were just burning to be answered. So, last Wednesday, with a lot of help from the absolutely adorable Abhishek Kant – Community Program Manager for Microsoft India – we managed to burn up the telephone wires for the better part of an hour with the warm and very approachable Jaspreet and the Assistant Product Manager for the Xbox 360 – Sanjoy John, getting down to brass tacks about the Xbox 360 and the Games for Windows platforms in India.

We were originally supposed to schedule a video interview with him sometime next week, but with Vijay and Reggie rowing the slave galleon pretty hard next week (not to mention how every spare moment in Vijay’s life is now spent playing Gollum And Its Precious with his Leader Class Bulkhead action figure), we decided we’ll just roll with what we have for now and do the video interview when the stars are aligned just right. One note about the following interview, when you see text marked out in italics like this, that’s just me inserting my thoughts on what’s being said or just being the kooky klass klown. Consider yourself warned.

Good afternoon, Mr. Bindra. It’s great to finally talk to you. We’ve been trying to get a hold of you since August…
OK, if you’re going to call me Mr. Bindra, I’m going to call you Mr. Krishnan. (laughs)

Oh, OK, (nervous laugh) let’s do that one again. Jaspreet, tell us a little bit about yourself and your new role at Microsoft.
Well, I joined Microsoft in 2005 to lead the Online Services Group (OSG), which includes brands such as MSN, Live Search, Messenger etc. that’s now bunched together as Windows Live, in addition to handling ad solutions for small businesses before moving in to the E&D division in September after Mohit left. You know, like adCenter, but on a smaller scale, where, like, for example, you’ve got The ANGRY Pixel and you have a lot of traffic coming to your site and you want to be able to monetize that (Hello! My ears start burning just about now.), but don’t want to spend a lot of effort and resources doing it, we’d step in and manage that for you. See, I’m kind of pitching here… (laughs)
(It has to be mentioned here that Jaspreet has had a great track record with the OSG, where revenues and search queries have increased drastically and MSN has become the second most popular portal in India.)

I’m all ears, Jaspreet. So, tell me, why you?
Umm, why me?

(I realize 3 seconds after I spill out the last question that I probably sounded very rude there. D’Oh!) What I mean is, how were you the person chosen to lead the E&D Division? What strengths do you bring to the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows retail platforms?
The E&D division is a lot bigger than the Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. Obviously, the Xbox 360 is the flagship product line for the division, which joins the Games for Windows line under the Interactive Entertainment Business. In addition to that, we also deal with the Entertainment Business line, focusing on digital entertainment including music and video content. And then there’s the Consumer Productivity Experiences Business, which includes keyboards and mice. Not just gaming ones, but also the standard ones that are available to all desktop users in the market. We also focus on the Mobile and Embedded Business line.

And that’s all what most people are aware of. What a lot of people might not know is that not only is the E&D Division in-charge of all of this, but we’re also the ones handling retail sales of our software lineup, including the Windows and Office brands. In fact, we’re pretty much the retail arm of the Microsoft business in India. And with my experience with high technology and retail, I moved from the OSG here.

Wow, you guys handle Windows and Office retail too. I definitely didn’t know about that until today. Ooh, talking about Windows and branching off a little from the Xbox 360 discussion here, how has the adoption been for Windows Vista in the country?
(laughs) Ask me about Windows 7!

Oh yeah, I’ve been working with that ever since the beta went up. It’s great, a lot better than Vista when it comes to performance.
Exactly, which is pretty much what everyone’s saying out there. Coming back to Vista though, well, let’s say that Vista has enjoyed better adoption rates in India than a lot of other places in the world. And with us constantly combating the high piracy rates here, it’s not exactly where we’d all want it to be. But with Service Pack 2 coming up, which features a lot of improvements to the existing framework, things should get even better.

(In fact, I had this exact same conversation with Abhishek a couple of days back, where we were talking about Windows 7 and Vista, and he pointed out that all of the hype and praise that’s being generated for Windows 7 isn’t through Microsoft, but by the community itself. And after rolling with the Windows 7 Beta for quite some time now, I totally agree that it’s worth every bit of praise that it’s been getting. As for Vista SP2 though, can’t say much about it, as I am still sitting on the download, waiting to install it. Personally though, I’ve been with my new wife Vista ever since her beta and haven’t gone back to to my old attention whore of an ex-wife called XP since! I like the fact that I haven’t had to reinstall it ever again after the first time while XP, for some odd reason, always made me go through the headache every couple of days.)

Coming back to the Xbox 360, I know Microsoft doesn’t usually release sales figures for their consoles outside North America, but is there some ballpark figure that you can give us on how successful the console has been in the country, installed user-base and such?
If you find out, let us know. (laughs) No, but seriously, it’s a little hard because, officially, it is Microsoft policy to not release such information and honestly speaking, it’s very hard to quantify an installed user-base in a market where consoles are sold not only through the official distribution and retail channels, but those outside as well. Until now, there have been a lot of places where you could pick up an Xbox 360, but where are you more likely to buy your console from? The high-end technology mall outlet or a small stationery-slash-electronics store in a basement? But yeah, I can tell you that we’ve run market surveys with gamers and from all that I have on hand, we have the king’s share of the next-gen console market.

(And I don’t think the LIVE adoption rates would mean a lot, considering I myself have five active LIVE accounts on my console and the fact that almost everyone I know has more than one account, Indian or otherwise. Nothing says “I ♥ Xbox 360″ more than flirting around with our Indian and US/UK/Singapore accounts and trying to get LIVE content that we’ll probably never get officially via our Indian GamerTags! Conversion rates, though, from Silver to Gold accounts could prove particularly interesting, if anyone has those numbers.)

One of the biggest issues with the Xbox 360 is the dreaded Ring of Death error. I personally have gone through 7 consoles already. Microsoft claims to have made progress with the Falcon and the Jasper units, which are definitely a lot more reliable than the launch models, but unfortunately, all consoles still being sold today in India are 2006 models for the most part. What’s with that, anyway?
OK, what’s happened is that when the Xbox 360 came to India, we pushed the brand strongly, which is something that happens worldwide with any new product launch, not just with the Xbox 360. And with all that enthusiasm and positive outlook going for it, the market became flooded with Xbox 360s. Now, I am not saying that’s a bad thing. On the contrary, it was what was needed at that time.

(Ka-BLAMO! Somehow, my brain starts thinking of The Dark Knight now, with the Xbox 360 as the Batman. “You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Blah-blah-blah. Blah. Sometimes, people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”
“He’s the hero we deserve, but not the one we need right now. So we’ll hunt him, because he can take it.” [DUN-DUN-DUN!]
OK, so I just love inserting random, crazy Batman crapola into my posts, but please, don’t come back and ask me whether this makes the PS3 the White Knight, the Harvey Dent, the Two-Face of the gaming world. I love the PS3 and the only White Knight I care about is getting to play White Knight Chronicles some day, which will probably involve me and Vijay going all E. Honda vs. Vega Street Fighter IV-style to decide who gets to keep the game.)

But as far as India is concerned, there are a lot of other problems that we face. The Xbox 360, along with other premium entertainment devices, bear the heaviest import duties for anything that comes into the country. So, when the international prices for the consoles have gone down to a point where you can pick up an Xbox 360 Arcade for, oh, $179 and up, we have been unable to follow suit simply because of how much we have to pay to get the consoles in to the country.

Since launch, duties may have gone down by around three to four percent and we’re absorbing the costs as much as we can, but there’s still only so much we can do. Tying this in with your sales question before, this means that as far as the Indian gaming market goes, which is still at an early stage, I’d say we’re doing fantastically great. But compared to other markets such as the Americas or Europe, we’re far behind and have a lot of catching up to do in all aspects. One way that the Xbox 360 makes up for its high production costs is through the sales of games and related services like Xbox LIVE. And we’ve been compensating for the hardware prices is by working with our second-party providers like EA to drive the prices of first- and second-party titles down. Our pre-recession prices for launching these titles in India was around $38, and the recent changes in the global economy have pushed them up to around $43, which makes India the cheapest place in the world to get brand-new games for the Xbox 360.

(The price of the Xbox 360 Pro in India, even now, is a staggering $550, pricier than it was in most places worldwide when it launched in 2005. Time for a quick calculation. If you had bought the console from the US at around the same time it launched in India, which was priced at $399, then you should have bought anywhere between 12 to 22 MS/EA games from then till now to have reaped the benefits of the $7 to $12 software price cut. I bought my console February 18th, 2007 and have purchased 23 games so far, out of which only 13 are first- and second-party titles, and my purchases of Gears of War, Viva Piñata and Kameo were at the full price of INR 2500 / $50. So… I’m still pretty much boned, I guess, but it’s OK, I’ve had and am having a whole lot of fun. Wait, ugh, enough bloody pointless math already. Back to the interview… and the news you’ve all been waiting for!)

Having said that, things will start to change soon. To answer your question, yes, we will be bringing in the newer models with the updated chipsets into the country, more specifically, the Jaspers. Starting a couple of months from now, the newer Arcade and Pro SKUs should be available throughout the country across specialized retail outlets. Now I say a couple of months because right now, we’re doing our best to sell the available stock out to make space for the new units and it could take some time to get it done. We haven’t fixed a specific launch date as of yet or exactly which SKUs would be imported, simply because we don’t know how much time this is going to take, but it should be soon. We’re planning to offer a whole variety of incentives for those that are going to invest in the platform though – price cuts, console bundles, etc., which should help the Xbox 360 become a stronger brand in the country.

Price cuts? About time! Woohoo! So how much would the prices get slashed by? Will the ridiculous prices of accessories such as the HDD be slashed too?
Again, since we haven’t nailed anything down yet and we’re discussing all this internally, I can’t really say exactly how much of a price cut there would be when we launch the new SKUs.

Approximately? Umm, any information at all…
See, it could even be as much as a 30-40% cut from its current pricing, but again, I have to say, we can’t really be anywhere near sure at this point. Once we get closer to the actual date, we could give you better information. And then again, like I mentioned earlier, there’s the government factor. It could get very hard for us match the international pricing of the console in the near future. You understand, right? And considering the Xbox 360 line-up, there will obviously be more Arcade units coming into the country than there will be Pro ones.

As for the accessories, unfortunately, no, there are no price cuts planned at this point.

(I can understand the logic about the Arcade units. They will be cheaper, without the burden of paying for additional accessories, and to support the NXE, these new babies even come with 256MB of built-in flash memory, making the Arcades the best choice for a budget-limited consumer that wants to enter the Xbox 360 gaming scene. As for the accessories though – sucks to be us! I suppose its still gonna be five and a half thousand bucks for a measly 20GB HDD. And to think I can get a 750GB one for my PC for less than that! Warms the heart, it does, yes, sir! /sadface)

You also mentioned console bundles. Interesting you bring that up, considering Europe is soon getting the “Best of Halo” bundle which includes Halo 3 and Halo Wars for $350. Considering Halo is a huge brand for the Xbox 360 and how we kinda fall under PAL territory… hint-hint, wink-wink?
We are planning to get bundles for the Xbox 360 in, but I can tell you that the “Best of Halo” bundle is definitely not going to be one of them. At least not now. I can’t tell you right now which bundles will be available in the country, though. Sorry, you’ll have to wait for that one.

(If I ever have to look for another job, I’d better stay away from anything that involves milking people for information, considering how much I suck at it. Maybe I’m only good at seducing beautiful women and doing a James Bond number to pump the secrets out of them. But seriously, the only “bundle” that exists in the country right now is the one that bunches together Viva Piñata and Forza Motorsport 2 along with the console. So very passé! Where’s the Gears of War 2 and the Fable II bundles? Where’s the rivers of gooey chocolate that I was promised?)

Fantastic! So people will start getting the 3RL-free consoles finally! But wait, what happens to the rest of us? The ones who’ve already bought the console? The last I checked, the 3-Year warranty for the Indian Xbox 360s runs out on September 24 this year, less than seven months from now. What happens to us?
That’s something we are working out right now. We don’t have a clear decision on that, but yes, there will be options for owners who suffer hardware problems to get their issues addressed without pain. Since there’s no service center for the Xbox 360 in India, and all consoles have to be sent to the Australian service center for repairs, we’re still working out the logistics of how all of this works out post-warranty.

Almost all of us who’ve gotten an Xbox 360 have the circa-2006 90nm Xenon hardware. To fix a lot of the overheating issues post-Falcon, Microsoft has been replacing the Xenon motherboards with the new 65nm Opus motherboards which allow Falcons to be housed in a Xenon when they’re sent in for repair and refurbishing. To your knowledge, has this already been happening with replacement consoles for the Indian consumer? Or are we still getting the “zombie repaired” Xenons?
Umm, I’m going to have to find out and get back to you on that, but off the bat, I’d say that we don’t really have any motherboard replacements happening for our Xbox 360s.

(OK, I’ll give them that. That was an unexpected question that not a lot of people probably ask them. That is, if anyone else ever has, so I guess they were caught unawares with that one. Although, with the high number of general hardware failures going for the Xbox 360, I wonder if the newer breed of refurbished consoles coming in for someone with an RRoD isn’t better than a brand new one available in the market. After all, it stands to reason that the Xbox 360 service center in Australia don’t want to spend any more money than they should fixing a Xenon when they could put in an Opus and technically slash the probability of an RRoD drastically. In any case, we’re going to keep following this up with the Microsoft India team until we get a definite answer.)

Phew, I suppose that’s enough for one interview. We have a lot more interesting questions and even more interesting answers from our tête-à-tête, so check back tomorrow to find out what Jaspreet and Sanjoy have to say about their marketing strategies for the Xbox 360 in India, including some surprising revelations on what’s coming soon to Xbox.com and how much of a gamer Jaspreet really is, not to mention the future of India-specific content, PC gaming and the Games for Windows brand.

With the game having gone gold and set to take players back to the Halo universe come February 27th, Halo: Wars is all set to start building the hype all over again, this time with the demo coming up on 05/02/2007, featuring two tutorials, the first two campaign missions and a multiplayer map. And if that don’t whet your appetite, here’s three ultra-high-resolution screenshots of the game featuring lone Warthogs and massive battles between the UNSC and the We ♥ Purple Covenant forces. Click on the thumbnails below for the full-resolution images. Don’t say we didn’t warn you though – they’re huge.

       

After having finished the fight last September, rabid fans of the Halo franchise had to be content with sticking their friends with grenades online and waiting for the next game set in the Haloverse, the first RTS in the series – Halo Wars. Though the continuation of the story (or rather, the prequel) was expected long before Halo 3 wrapped up (or not) the Master Chief saga, few expected it to take the form of a real time strategy game that Bungie, in collaboration with Age of Empires legend Ensemble Studios are expected to spring on us later this year. RTS games on the Xbox 360, like Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars before it, have always been iffy, what with the level of control and freedom that a conventional keyboard-mouse combination offers, but Ensemble Studios, like every other console RTS dev before them, have claimed to have worked out the nuances of controlling the game using a standard Xbox 360 controller without frustration levels peaking into the red-zone.

While we wait for the official demo of the game to check out the control scheme for ourselves and speculate on the possibility of wreaking havoc with the Covenant war machine, one of our friends over at Microsoft, like many of us from time to time, developed a case of verbal diarrhoea and slipped us some really interesting information. Now, while we are never in the habit of starting rumors, this one comes from someone on the inside who swears on its authenticity on pain of death, and we’ve been sitting on this one for almost a couple of weeks now, trying to verify it before we say anything about it.

Finally, after enough assurances that this is not a cruel hoax, we can let you, our dear readers, know that Halo Wars, touted as an Xbox 360 exclusive, is also apparently in development for the PC. But that’s not all – apparently the game will also feature cross-platform play, a la UNO and Shadowrun, between gamers on the Microsoft console and their PC counterparts.

Of course, most of this was to be expected, considering that almost every Microsoft game on the console has inexorably made it to the PC as well, albeit a couple of months or years later. And while we haven’t been told whether the game will be made available for both the Xbox 360 and the PC simultaneously, it stands to reason that it must be the case if the cross-platform rumor is indeed true. And especially considering the fact that Ensemble Studios has boundless expertise developing RTSes for the PC, it makes even more sense that the game would end up on the PC as well, since it would be a waste to squander all their talents as a PC developer on a console-exclusive strategy title.

And better yet, this should also enable Microsoft to expand the Games for Windows LIVE portfolio, which hasn’t been seeing any serious takers thanks to its feature rich brother on the Xbox 360 (deservedly) hogging all the limelight. But for all those people wondering how the online cross-platform gameplay is going to work, Ensemble, according to our man on the inside, has ditched the complex resource and unit management typically seen in an Age game in favor of something that resembles World in Conflict’s online gameplay model. From what we’ve heard, Halo Wars will take the best of games such as World in Conflict and Company of Heroes have to offer, allowing gamers to control a smaller group of units, such as a limited number of Warthogs and Wolverines, which can be swapped with other units as and when the situation on the battlefield demands it. And the more points the units gather, they get access to superweapons such as orbital particle cannons, like World in Conflict’s nukes, wipe out every friend and foe in the blast radius.

Strangely enough, we’ve also heard some people claim that the game, confirmed to have co-operative play, will allow the PC amigos to create their own maps (as is usual with Ensemble’s games) and in addition to that, play those with gamers on the Xbox 360. Apparently, this makes cross-platform gaming the only way Xbox 360 owners will be able to play on custom maps on the console. Since our insider couldn’t confirm or deny this little detail, we’ll just dismiss this as wishful thinking, since Microsoft is usually intolerably harsh when it comes to custom content on Xbox LIVE. (Unreal Tournament III, anyone?)

In the end, we’ll be more than happy if all of this does happen as it is rumored to, since PC owners have always been given the short end of the stick when it comes to the Halo games, something which we hope Ensemble and Bungie will be able to remedy with Halo Wars. If it doesn’t, oh well, there’s always StarCraft 2!

UPDATE: It looks like IGN decided to contact Microsoft about this little rumor, and Microsoft, as usual, have flat out denied that any such thing is in the works. Talking to IGN, they have explicitly said:

Halo Wars is being developed from the bottom up for the Xbox 360 and its control scheme to ensure that we deliver a groundbreaking console RTS experience. Given that, we have no plans to develop ‘Halo Wars‘ for Windows Vista at this time.

OK, so that settles it, I guess. But… we’re still not going to lynch, draw and quarter our source. After all, I remember all too well how Microsoft vehemently kept putting down the Gears of War PC rumor and we all know how that one turned out. Nah, we’ll just play the waiting game until Microsoft contradicts themselves yet another time and confirm this a couple of months down the line. After all, no one hardly thinks Microsoft is just going to sit idly on this one and not include cross-platform play, especially not after Universe at War: Earth Assault.