Axel Strohm European Correspondent	Recent Favorites: Ico, No One Lives Forever PS2 Most Wanted: Rallisport Challenge, Halo, Stuntman

The Heat Is Finally on in Europe

The Xbox recently debuted in Europe and Australia, the last major territories to get the eagerly awaited console. I had a lot of conversations in the last week with people from Germany, UK, and Scandinavia, and it's very interesting how the console was received in these countries and how launch events differed from country to country. I remember a week before launch, I was talking to a friend of mine in Germany, who is as into video games as I am. He reflected somewhat that the mood in Germany one week before launch was one of skepticism because of (1) the price tag of 479 euros and (2) the fact that players can have a PS2 at the same time, with a lot more software titles to choose from. Much to the dismay of Microsoft, the problems in Japan with CDs getting scratched by the disc drive occurred about the same time. Only a few days before the launch of the Xbox in Europe, UK newspapers covered technical problems that had just surfaced in Japan the weeks before. The mainstream press picked up on it, strangely enough. It could be that we were informed about this by a competitor, for example, who wanted the company to get some bad press to spoil the launch. Maybe I'm just watching too many conspiracy movies.

MGS2 launched in Europe one week before the Xbox arrived and still sold 2 million copies.

In Germany, Microsoft was getting additional bad press because of the price war that broke out on the day of launch when one major retail chain lowered the price from 479 euro down to 399 euro--a price drop to the point where retailers don't make any profit per sold unit. The profits come from sold software and peripherals instead. Of course, the smaller retailers who couldn't afford dropping the price like that went nuts, so it was expected that Microsoft would need to interfere to a certain extent on the pricing policy of some retailers or at least help smaller retailers so that they could still sell the Xbox without making a loss.

			Do you think the price of the Xbox is justified? Yes, you get a lot of value for your money No, it's way too expensive It's worth the money only if they can get online up and running--and soon

Today I wandered through the streets downtown, went to some shops I know, and talked to the guys running the stores. I asked them how the Xbox is selling in their stores, and they all said it is selling pretty well. My impression from what I saw downtown was that it didn't matter whether you went to a big store or a small import game store--the Xbox is everywhere. There are Xbox stickers at the shopping windows of stores, and the demo units feature prominently in most stores, inviting players to have a go at Halo, Project Gotham Racing, or Dead or Alive 3. And it also didn't really matter how much everyone said the Xbox would fail, because it's here and it's selling well. However, I'm still highly suspicious about the whole online thing, maybe because Sega disappointed us over here in Europe in a huge way. "Six billion players" was the tag that the Dreamcast was sold with, and exactly one year after the launch of the console, the Dreamcast was online in countries like Switzerland. Germany was a bit earlier, and UK too, but when it all came together, the servers at the British Telecom (which was where the European servers were) collapsed.

As could be expected, Halo was sold with almost every Xbox sold in Europe.

I really desperately hope that Microsoft can pull off the whole online thing. And Sony too. The prospect of getting the consoles finally connected to provide experiences surpassing that found in Phantasy Star Online is nothing else but phenomenal. However, there will be plenty of hurdles for the European market in particular--with so many countries and so many ISPs and telecom companies, it will be a big undertaking to get online up and running in Europe. Both Microsoft and Sony should be able to benefit from Sega's experiences, though, which have been both good and bad and which also show where the pitfalls are in taking a console into the world of online gaming. Microsoft has stated several times recently that there are more people working on the whole online aspect of Xbox now than there have been people involved in the actual development of the console itself. This should be further proof that Microsoft knows they are not allowed to fail in online play, particularly given the ambitious goal of taking the Xbox online within the next half year. Personally, I'll just sit back and wait because I'm darn curious about how this will turn out. With Sony gearing up its admittedly promising PlayStation 2 online plans too, it's hard not to be excited. Finally, I will be able to play Twisted Metal Black online, which I always hoped would happen one day. Thank you, Sony.

What annoyed me during the whole Xbox launch, though, were the public fights between Sony and Microsoft, with each one bashing the other's system. I always thought only fanboys did that. I don't even get what the point is in all this. I mean, I can understand that there is rivalry because the Xbox and PS2 pretty much go head-to-head, but we all know there's room for both consoles and the GameCube once it's launching in Europe too. There are so many segments in this market and so many individual tastes that both Microsoft and Sony have enough space. In my opinion, Sony and Microsoft should think about broadening the market instead of bashing the biggest rival, because it might be wiser in the long term to let rivals be rivals and instead make up their minds about how to attract new segments of the public to video gaming. If the PS2 didn't have an impact on the sales of the Xbox and the Xbox didn't have an impact on PS2 sales either, why bother? The public bashing of other systems doesn't help our industry as a whole, which still is struggling for respect in the eyes of the public.