Moore on Wii prospects

Microsoft's Peter Moore reckons that the Nintendo Wii might end up being left on the shelf and pulled out at parties.

Speaking in an interview to coincide with Microsoft's Japanese press briefing yesterday, he said the price meant it would be "a number two box".

"The fear I would have is that people will buy the box and only play a few games," he said. "I think you'll pull it out at parties. It's fun for a few minutes, but I'm not sure."

Elsewhere in the interview, Moore's asked what he sees as the ideal Xbox consumer. "He is a male," Moore begins.

"He is connected." (We think he means to the Internet.) "He is very, very used to going online for community. He's probably played PC games online. He's part of a Halo 2 clan and has been for two years."

"That comes from him playing Halo in college - so he's 23 or 24 - with his buddies. He still loves to go out on a Wednesday night with them, even though they're spread all around the US. But they all come together Wednesday night to relive the days in the dorm room."

"He also expects instant gratification, the delivery of game demos to his hard drive via his broadband network. And he's popular enough to have his profile online and he's pretty competitive, so he loves Achievements. He'll stay up all night to get achievements in games that his buddies have because it just pisses him off that they've got them first."

"He also would rather starve to death than not have a high-definition TV. He'll go without food rather than have a standard-def 27-inch TV."

With that out of the way, Moore says he reckons that "many would say the advantage goes to Microsoft" in the battle with Sony "because we're in the second generation of game development".