Microsoft game show gets new season, but where are the rest? |
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Microsoft game show gets new season, but where are the rest?
[The last time we went behind the scenes at Xbox Live's 1 vs. 100, a database glitch shut down the show. We returned Tuesday evening to see the show in action as it launches into its second season.]
Microsoft's "1 vs. 100" game show, which mashes together the worlds of live television and video games, was originally billed as the first in a what was to become a broader lineup of "Xbox Live Primetime" programs on the company's Xbox 360 console.
With the show now entering its second season (technically its first official season after a public beta), it's routinely drawing many tens of thousands of simultaneous users. But it remains a lineup of one.
So where are the rest?
During a visit to the "1 vs. 100" studios in Redmond earlier this week, I got a chance to pose that question to Manuel Bronstein, the show's director and Microsoft's director of social interactive entertainment. Bronstein said the company is still learning from "1 vs. 100" and isn't prepared to talk publicly about the possibility of other shows.
[See Bronstein's response in the behind-the-scenes video above.]
Bronstein didn't go into this kind of detail, but one obvious challenge in expanding to additional shows will be coming up with viable ideas for potential hits. "1 vs. 100" is well-suited for a massively multiplayer online television game show. Others might require more adjustments to fit the hybrid Xbox Live format.
Long term, the company's ability to come up with more successful live programs -- game shows and otherwise -- might just determine whether or not it succeeds in its quest to push Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 console further into the entertainment mainstream. For all the DVRs in the world today, live content is still a critical element of programming delivered via the television screen.
In the short run, the rocky advertising market would tend to make Microsoft more cautious, as well. Sprint is back as a sponsor for the second season, its branding integrated into various elements of the show, and Microsoft is counting on the wireless provider's experience to help persuade more to follow suit. Bronstein pointed to a study that quizzed "1 vs. 100" users on their recall of sponsors' brand messages that were displayed in the game.
"The number," he said, "was very, very good."
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