According to Variety, Bach said that the pricing will start high and decrease over time. "Relative to Natal," said Bach, "we'll see how the pricing cost works out. But people should except that it will go through the usual price curve."

The tech was first demoed at E3 in Los Angeles earlier this year. Microsoft seems to be approaching Project Natal as its own platform, and not simply a peripheral. When asked when Project Natal will no longer be referred to by its code name "Natal", Bach replied, "When we tell you to call it something else."

Oh.

Elsewhere during the event, Bach discussed mobile gaming, possibly feeding the flames of those waiting for a portable Xbox gaming device. According to Bach, "The portable market is important." He's right, it is. But important enough for Microsoft to launch its own platform? Continuing, Bach stated, "So in the gaming space, you need to make a fork in the road decision on whether you're going to do a portable device or focus on phones. The way technology is advancing with phones, [they are] going to be a very strong platform. The only think holding it back today is battery life."

Project Natal May Cost You [Variety]

Speaking to The Mercury News, Bach explains that in today's economy especially, persuading consumers to upgrade is becoming more and more difficult, especially with the quality of graphics on today's consoles.

"Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient," said Bach, 47. "The life cycle for this generation of consoles — and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well — is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."

I suppose the only question remains is which generations is he talking about here? The nearly ten-year Atari 2600 generation? The seven-year reign of the original NES? I'm pretty sure the current crop can last the latter, but the former might just be pushing it a bit too far. Longer development times will certainly contribute, but can consumers really wait nearly a decade for the next big thing?

Microsoft in no hurry to upgrade Xbox [The Mercury News via Edge]

We've heard this before. Microsoft isn't going Blu-ray. Still, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division, lays out three years why the company isn't keen on the format:

It’s not a feature we get a ton of requests for. We really don’t. When you ask people the list of things they want to see us spending time creating in Xbox, Blu-ray is way, way down on the list.

The second thing is, from a technical perspective, it doesn’t help us in the core of what Xbox does, which is in gaming. We can’t have publishers produce games on Blu-ray disc. Because then they won’t play on the 28 million Xboxes we’ve already shipped. So it doesn’t help us in the core gaming space.

The third thing, and this maps to all three of those, is that it costs a lot of money. And so the scenario is, OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.

If HD DVD had won the format war, would Microsoft be singing this song?

Q&A: Microsoft's Robbie Bach on economy, Zune glitch and iPhone [TechFlash via VG247]

Yes, Microsoft's Robbie Bach misspoke during last night's CES keynote. Nowhere in the world is Halo Wars' release date February 28th. It's hitting Japan and Asia Pacific on February 26th; Europe, Middle East and Africa on February 27th; and it's waging war on the Americas on March 3rd.

We're pretty sure that February 5th release date for the demo is correct though. Microsoft reps haven't issued a correction on that.

We have not seen, on the consumer side of our business, a slowdown.

Guess that explains those studio closings, huh.

Microsoft Xbox unit sees no consumer slowdown-exec [Guardian via Xboxer]

"Everyone thinks we are a software company," said Bach. "That's true. But, we have been in the hardware market for 26 years now. Games and phones, we have only been in these markets for a short time but we are seeing great success."

Microsoft makes phones? Perhaps the great success lies in keeping me completely unaware of this! Bach spent some time during the conference talking up upcoming Zune features, such as the ability to play games, which I am almost positive will justify my Zune purchase whenever the choose to get around to adding that. Hey, did you hear the new models are hitting next week, allowing you to download songs directly from the Zune? Picking up the new iPod Touch instead? Just checking.

Game on, says computer giant [Alberni Valley Times]

He tells VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi of the 360's notoriously faulty hardware "In the ordinary course of something like this, you would expect it to show up in the customer reaction data. We just haven’t seen that. It speaks to the fact that they love their games and Xbox Live." Bach says customers "know we’re taking care of them," a response that breeds "respect."

Bach also talked about the next generation of Xbox.

"Our view is we will be selling Xbox 360 for a long time," he tells Takahashi, possibly hinting that it won't be as quick to beat Sony and Nintendo the jump next round. Bach says that next gen planning began before the 360 shipped, but is vague on details.

He's particularly cryptic on the active development of the next Xbox, saying of the next-gen development team "On the one hand, it’s everybody. On the other, it’s nobody." That might be the best non-answer we've ever seen.

The Entertainment & Devices Division boss does an impressive job of dodging and being non-committal throughout the interview. For anyone aspiring to work at the executive level, it's a fantastic primer on how to answer tough questions. Do check it out.

Interview with Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, part 2, on Xbox 360 [VentureBeat]

The PSP is a reasonably successful product at the profit-and-loss level. But as a product concept, there are cautionary tales to learn from it. While it is good at producing audio, it’s not a good music player because it doesn’t have local storage (except for flash memory slots). You can’t keep your music there. It has a beautiful screen, but you can only get the video under the Universal Media Disc format. That format hasn’t been successful. On a game level, it has done well. But even there, it is mostly PlayStation 2 ports. There isn’t much original content.

Robbie Bach, (re-?) growing a pair. Better late than never!

Interview with Microsoft’s Robbie Bach, part 1, on Zune [VentureBeat]

"That’s the first time we’ve been able to say that," Bach, chief of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, told the San Jose Mercury News." That’s total Xbox business — service, software and hardware.”

Well, they've got a two-quarter head start toward that bold proclamation. It probably takes some sting out of the depressing sales numbers over in Europe, where an analyst warns that that weak sales there could see the 360 de-listed by retailers in some territory. Some more outtakes from a chat he had with the Merc are after the jump.

Not sure exactly what he means by "positive" and "negative" here but this is interesting:

"Recognize that for us, the fact that ‘Grand Theft Auto’ was a positive event for us is an amazing statement. Because if you think back to last generation, anything associated with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ was bad and was PlayStation. And so the idea that we’ve been able to build an ecosystem and an experience that attracts people who have never thought of being on our platform before is a pretty powerful statement.”

Is he talking about bad publicity for a violent video game? Is he talking about San Andreas, the last game, or anything from GTA:III forward?

And on that score, he talks about attracting people "who have never been on our platform before." Yet in the same discussion, says:

In the US, there wasn’t much pop for anybody on hardware, and there are a number of things I can point out: First of all, I think both in Europe and the U.S., the idea that there’d be pop right away was probably a fallacy to begin with, because you’re going to sell to the installed base first anyway. They’re the people who pre-reserved, so the first wave of customers are going to be people who already have a console, whether it’s a PS3 or an Xbox.

So which is it?

That puts Microsoft's E&DD team up over a half-billion for fiscal year 2008, which, if they continue to perform positively, will go a long to proving Robbie Bach right about profitability. Hey, they might not be Nintendo numbers, but it's a step in the right direction. After losing billions upon billions since the creation of the Xbox business, two quarters of profit is good news for Microsoft.

Do I hear some of you chanting three-peat(TM)?

Microsoft Reports Record Second Quarter Results [Microsoft]

"Well! There you go, prophetic," Bach said enthusiastically. "In fact it has been a role reversal. We were on first this time like they were last time, we had a product that was more price-competitive this time, and we had a higher attach rate."

The article goes into a great deal of specifics as far as the profitability of his division within Microsoft versus the much more profitable software division, citing that Halo releases have been the only time the E&D group have actually posted profits, but Bach is keeping his eyes firmly on the long term.

Towards the end of the article, Edmonton Journal writer Steve Makris ponders the possibility of a Microsoft handheld gaming device sometime in the near future.

"We don't talk about what we are doing, but generally when I look at the hand-held space, we haven't seen anything there that says, 'gosh, we wanna go make a big investment there.' It's a fairly tough area, a place where Sony and particularly Nintendo are doing a pretty good job."

It's fair to say that Xbox Live is clearly head and shoulders above anything anyone else has tried to do. We don't have competition. Sony has done some things online, but nothing that can be called a service. We have a big advantage and we're going to keep pressing that advantage.

But it turns out that Bach had already unloaded an additional $3 million in Microsoft stock on May 1st. (A late SEC filing caused many to overlook this number before.) So that brings the total to $9.2 million shady stock practices by Robbie Bach. Ironically, the stock didn't plummet and all is good in the world. Other than, you know, Bach being front page news on MarketWatch.

Microsoft's Bach sold more stock before Xbox news [via maxconsole]

Lets get the obvious out of the way first, Bach is adamant that Moore's resignation from Microsoft had nothing to do with the recent announcement of an extended Xbox 360 warranty and the hardware malfunctions rearing its ugly head.

"This decision was directly related to him wanting to be in California," Bach said. "He was in California when we hired him, his kids grew up there... and it's where he and his family wants and needs to be right now. I think it's sometimes a tendency to think, 'oh gosh, it's something else, but there isn't any other reason.

"It's not tied at all (to the recent warranty announcement), it's not related. If you think about it, the timing's really more about the EA reorganization. They created the job and were looking for someone and Peter was evaluating his situation."

Bach said that Moore first came to him "awhile back" to tell him he might be leaving to go to EA, but that it's only been "weeks" since the details were locked in.

"Once we got to that point I started talking to Don and looking at what we would do," Bach said.

I asked Bach about the difficulties in replacing the man who has essentially been the face of the Xbox 360 since its launch. His response: Everyone, including Moore and Bach himself is replaceable.

"My guess is in a few months from now no one will be thinking about it."

Mattrick too was there, a bit low-key but that's understandable on the day his predecessor's retirement was announced. He was a bit taken aback, I think, when my first question was whether he was prepared to get ink for Microsoft.

"That wasn't the first thing on my to-do list," he said. "I understand the personal reasons for his decision, but I think the job he had was the best one to have in the industry.

"If a tattoo is necessary we can double back on that."

Gamespot is reporting that the firm is projecting sales of Halo 3 could generate revenue of $170 million in its first week alone. Goldman-Sachs also says that figure could go up to as much as $220 million should the userbase see an increase near the top of their projections. That's a lot of Master Chief helmet replicas!

If Halo 3 does take Microsoft's games division out of the red this fall, it would be months before Robbie Bach's own estimate for turning a profit. Don't you just love these heart-warming stories of multi-billion dollar corporations going from underdog to sales hero with the release of a safe, surefire hit sequel? Makes the cockles all toasty. Michael McWhertor

Analysts: Halo 3 to push Xbox business into the black [Gamespot]

Well, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal decided to root out some details from his developer contacts and see how accurate Bach was in his evaluation. The two consoles, despite featuring similar CPU and GPU clockspeeds with Wii sporting more RAM, are closer in horsepower than you might think. The reason? The Wii's fixed feature GPU.

While a definitive answer won't be found, Croal writes Bach is "darned close to the mark." Read on for more in-depth investigation. Michael McWhertor

Geek Out: Xbox Uber-Boss Robbie Bach Takes a Shot At Nintendo's 'Underpowered' Wii. Does He Manage to Score a Bulls-Eye, or Is He Just Shooting Blanks? (Good Lord, N'Gai!) [Level Up]

That's what Entertainment & Devices Division president Robbie Bach told eWeek recently when they interviewed him about his slice of the business, which also includes the Zune.

Calling the Xbox 360 the "hardest piece of consumer electronics hardware to produce in the world" Bach says the division will be moving into the black when they start to break even on the hardware later this year and see growth from Xbox Live and peripheral sales contributing to positive cash flow.

Looks like J Allard was right! Damn, that dude's got quite a noodle on him. Michael McWhertor

Microsoft Poised to Rule Entertainment, Devices World [eWeek]

Ya know, it's gotta be hard. A huge company like Sony making everything from game machines to Spiderman font. How do they do it? What's more, imagine working for someone like Microsoft and having to hide your other consoles. The horror. Fret not, while Sony might have its fingers in too many pots, Microsoft's Robbie Bach says multi-console employees are kosher:

You know, and I think Sony, frankly, suffers a little bit from this problem, which is they're spread really thin across all these areas. And trying to do PSP, competing with Nintendo, PSP to DS; competing with us, 360 to PS3, I think it does strain — it would naturally strain any organization...

...The truth is, do we — are there people in Microsoft who have PS2s? And the answer is yes. And that's OK. Are there people at Microsoft that have GameCubes, and the answer is almost certainly yes. It's not a manhood test.

Don't quite follow Bach's logic, seeing as how Microsoft is competing with Sony's PS3 and Apple's iPod, and Nintendo's doing a-okay. Regardless, he does have a point about taking on too much. Mental note: Owning multiple consoles is a good thing. Multiple business, not.

Elsewhere, Bach stirs the inevitable Xbox 360 price drop chatter. He pointed out that Microsoft was currently thinking about how to "cost reduce" the Xbox 360, saying "You have to ask the question, over the life cycle, who has the cost advantage? Who can price most effectively? Who can reach the price points quicker? That has a huge impact on what gets driven." Indeed! Brian Ashcraft

Bach Talks... A lot [Mercury News, Thanks Michael!]