Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg

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Every game Microsoft showed off at its X10 event in San Francisco last week was a platform exclusive.

From Halo: Reach to Alan Wake; Splinter Cell: Conviction to Perfect Dark XBLA, the message was clear: 'This entertainment is ours and ours only.'

CVG caught up with Xbox product director Aaron Greenberg to ask him more...

X10 featured a pretty impressive line-up of games, considering you're obviously holding some stuff back for E3. Do you feel Xbox is unique in the respect of having this strength of line-up before the biggest show of the year?
We haven't done this kind of showcase this early in the year before. I think the fact that we're showing what many people see as an E3-quality game line-up in early February, is reflective of the type of year we expect to have.

We said at CES at the start of the year that 2010 will be the biggest year in the history of Xbox. We didn't want to just say it, we wanted to back it up the fact you're here and we've got Splinter Cell: Conviction, we've got Alan Wake, we've got Crackdown 2 ,we've got Fable III, we've even got Halo: Reach - these are all being shown and it's only February.

These all exclusive, triple-A titles which will sell millions of units. I think it's a pretty good sign we're going to have a huge year. That, by the way, is just a glimpse of what we have for the full year, we'll have more at E3, more at the holiday. It's going to be a huge year, for sure.

When you compare your exclusives to what PS3 has - over and above God Of War III - how would you place your announced triple-A titles?
If you're a gamer and you're interested in core blockbuster titles, there's no other platform that offers more titles, or offers more exclusives. Honestly, there's going to be great games on the PS3 and we respect that. But our goal is to have the most blockbuster titles and the most exclusives. And I think we clearly have that this year.

This is going to be a big year for us - not just for core games, but what we're going to do with Xbox Live, being able to bring Project Natal to market this holiday. It's truly an exciting year.

Is the strength of your 'exclusive' boast reduced by the fact that these games might come out on PC too?
I can't think of any Xbox exclusives we're showing here that are on PC as well. For example, Crackdown, Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Fable III - all these titles have been signed primarily, if not only, for console.

The fact that some of our titles end do up on the PC I don't think it impacts us that much. We still have a larger number of exclusives on our console.

What drives you to make something like Alan Wake or Fable non-PC?
I think that's more of a business thing. It's like what's the cost of having a team dedicated to making that on the PC [versus] how many units will you sell?

There's no [idea] like: We're not doing it because we want the exclusive only on Xbox. We do have resources - a certain number of people [versus] how many people can work on a game across multiple platforms. But [other than that] trade-off, there are no other real motives.

Why did you decide to cut off Xbox Live on the original Xbox console?
We gave it a lot of thought... We knew that Halo 2, for example, was one of the first titles that many people had played multiplayer online.

But we're at that point now where that community has largely transitioned off and onto Xbox 360. And now, by discontinuing that support we're able to actually add more functionality into Xbox Live on Xbox 360. Not having to think about the legacy of Xbox Live on Xbox One means we're able to optimise and roll out a new set of features to the market.

Is Natal a mainstream, party-game proposition - or do you see its future in an appeal to the hardcore Xbox 360 consumer?
Natal will bring an entirely new category of experiences to the platform. Who they appeal to will range. Think of this as additive now - controller-free gaming that offers the ability to interact with games and have entertainment experiences where you don't have to use a controller.

It can track your body, you can use your voice: These are new things that really haven't existed before. We'll focus on delivering original high quality experiences - and I believe many of those will appeal to both the core and the much more broader consumer. Absolutely we believe there's an opportunity for those who haven't played games before or are much more casual users to interact with the Xbox and make it much more approachable.

For example, the ability to navigate the interface with just your hands and voice. We probably all have stories of relatives or parents that explaining to them how to play a movie on Xbox is an interesting process. But if they could use their hands to navigate or say "play movie" with their voice, these are things anybody can do. Really making it as simple as possible.

How would you respond to those who think Natal is just a jazzed-up version of EyeToy?
We obviously could have done a motion controller if we'd have wanted to do that, but that would be a much more interruptive experience. We had an opportunity here to really do something that's transformative and to bring a whole new category of experiences to life.

Now we're saying to creators: 'We can see when you move your hand, when you moved your feet, we can track your body. I can stand in front of this sensor and it can recognise my face. And know if it's me or my brother or my sister.' The richness of the technology is going to really enable experiences we've never had existed before.

And we're not just speaking about what we're doing this year, but I think two, three, four, five years from now as this evolves. Millions of consumers this Holiday will be able to experience Project Natal, and this is just the beginning of something that will change the way consumers interact with entertainment and change way our publishing partners think about game development.

Does your faith in Project Natal extend to a version 2 after that five year period?
[Whistles] That's a tough question. For us, it's hard to think two, three, four years out. What we feel like today is that we're not even half-way through this lifecycle.

And most of us feel like what we're doing with Project Natal is the next generation experience, but we're able to deliver that this generation. That's the exciting part - you don't have to go and buy a new console to get this experience. We'll see how that experience evolves and what gets brought to market.

Surely the ideal way to get Natal to a wider audience would be to bundle it with the Xbox 360 hardware?
We haven't announced any of those types of details. Where we're at is still code name status. We unveiled the tech last year at E3 and now we're heavy in mid-development working with partners.

We'll showcase the actual games and experiences and talk about what the consume name for the product will be later this year. Definitely make sure you come to E3 - as we'll be announcing a lot of these there.

Tim Ingham