Allard envisions a shared Zune and 360 network
J Allard and Microsoft want to be the king, no scratch that, the iron fisted media ruler of your living room and they firmly believe that the way to throne is by integrating everything.
In an interview with the New York Times Blog, Allard discusses Microsoft's plans to connect the Xbox 360 world with the Zune's to create one massively connected content source. "The Zune guys have to run really fast. The Windows Mobile guys are on a two-year release cycle. The Xbox team now needs to focus on cost reduction, distribution and quality process. Everyone is on their own cadence. The one thing that transcends all this is the network as the nexus". Allard and Microsoft's plans are (undoubtedly) vague and somewhat fluffy in how they plan on executing an MSN style integration, but we'll just have to sit back and see what comes down the pipeline.
And honestly, we're not sure if having our Xbox 360, Zune, Windows Mobile, MSN, IPTV and other super-amazing-Microsoft-product services wrapped up into one do it all service nexus. Yes, it's an interesting concept that'll aid in Microsoft becoming king of all digital media, but from a gamer's standpoint ... we just want games. Hopefully Microsoft can find the right balance of inter-connectivity without shoving services down our throats or bloating the system, because we're still about the games. Remember Allard, Xbox 360 is all about the games.
