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Microsoft to launch Xbox Live service here in two months

Microsoft Corp is planning to launch its Xbox Live gaming service in Taiwan in April as it seeks to expand its presence in the gaming industry, an official said yesterday.

"I think we can gain some market share from the online version ... we tested the product during the Taipei Game Show [last week] with positive responses from local gamers," Cary Chen (陳傑樺), Xbox product manager, said.

The Xbox video-game console went on sale in Taiwan in November 2002. Chen refused to reveal sales figures, but said sales of Sony Corp's PlayStation 2 were 20 percent higher than those for the Xbox.

Xbox Live first appeared in the US in November 2001, allowing gamers to compete against each other via the Internet. The service will be available in Hong Kong and Singapore from April.

Microsoft has not yet clinched the charge policy for the markets.

In the US, the Xbox Live starter kit sells for US$69.99, which includes a 12-month subscription that is automatically renewed annually for US$49.99.

Alan Bowman, general manager of Xbox Business in Asia, said earlier this month that he expected Xbox Live to get a warm reception from gamers in the three new markets, where he said there was an established gaming culture and high broadband penetration rates.

Bowman made the prediction based partly on South Korea, where the product was introduced in October last year and has attracted more than 6,500 subscribers so far.

Max Jen (任學璽), an editor of a Chinese-language gaming magazine, said he was delighted that Xbox Live was coming to Taiwan but that market acceptance was not guaranteed.

The first obstacle Microsoft will encounter is access to the Internet, Jen said. Xbox Live requires a 128kps broadband connection for the best results, but most Taiwanese Internet users have only a 64kps broadband facility, Jen said.

Second, although Microsoft said it would introduce more than 30 game titles with online multiplayer capabilities, Jen said this was still not enough to attract gamers, especially as most of the games do not cater to the tastes of Asian players.

As Microsoft tries to make inroads into the new sector, its two major competitors said they had no plans to follow suit.

"We welcome Microsoft's new business in the market," Tetsuya Ogawa, a public relations official at Sony Computer Entertainment, said yesterday. "I don't think the rollout will affect our business here."

Sony sold 350,000 PlayStat-ion 2s in Taiwan between January 2000, when it launched, and the end of last year. It has sold 70 million PlayStation 2s globally and developed more than 140 games since then, according to statistics released last month.

Smaller rival Nintendo, which acknowledged that the arrival of online gaming had greatly influenced the video-game market, said it will still focus on its video games and palm games, said Tsai Hsueh-wei (蔡學煒), a director at Hak Uyu Co (博優公司), a distributor of Nintendo products in Taiwan.
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