Activision To Prepare Its Own 'Xbox Live' For PCs
Needs to get more PCs hooked up to TVs first.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has recently spoken of his desire to offer a subscription-based Call of Duty experience. To do that, PCs have to become a viable alternative to consoles when it comes to living room gaming. The solution? Get more PCs connected to televisions around the world.
The cheery executive revealed to the Financial Times of the publisher's plan to "very aggressively" support efforts by Dell and HP to encourage consumers to hook their personal computers to their living room TVs. It could help boost the PC gaming industry as a result, as well as breaking the "walled gardens" of online play provided by consoles.
"PCs have long been used for online play, but PC gaming remains niche when the games industry needs to widen its appeal," Kotick said. "Consoles do a very good job of supporting the gamer. If we are going to broaden our audiences, we are going to need to have other devices."
Of course, there is a financially-driven goal behind all of this. With Activision eager to provide a pay-for subscription network for PC players, it is going to want as many people sitting in front of a Dell machine as possible.
Citing the statistic that 60% of all Xbox Live players exist because of Call of Duty, Kotick suggested that the publisher should really be launching its own rival service. "We don’t really participate financially in [Microsoft's] income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on [Xbox] Live, but it’s not our network."
Some call it 'nickel-and-diming', others call it 'value'. Where do you sit? Let us know in the comments box below.
The cheery executive revealed to the Financial Times of the publisher's plan to "very aggressively" support efforts by Dell and HP to encourage consumers to hook their personal computers to their living room TVs. It could help boost the PC gaming industry as a result, as well as breaking the "walled gardens" of online play provided by consoles.
"PCs have long been used for online play, but PC gaming remains niche when the games industry needs to widen its appeal," Kotick said. "Consoles do a very good job of supporting the gamer. If we are going to broaden our audiences, we are going to need to have other devices."
Of course, there is a financially-driven goal behind all of this. With Activision eager to provide a pay-for subscription network for PC players, it is going to want as many people sitting in front of a Dell machine as possible.
Citing the statistic that 60% of all Xbox Live players exist because of Call of Duty, Kotick suggested that the publisher should really be launching its own rival service. "We don’t really participate financially in [Microsoft's] income stream. We would really like to be able to provide much more value to those millions of players playing on [Xbox] Live, but it’s not our network."
Some call it 'nickel-and-diming', others call it 'value'. Where do you sit? Let us know in the comments box below.
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