Shane Kim on Halo 3

GameSpy: Halo and Halo 2 carried the Xbox, in terms of being the primary games to play on that platform.

Shane Kim: And Xbox Live.

GameSpy: Right, Halo 2 really made Xbox Live. Do you feel that the third game in a trilogy can carry a platform?

Shane Kim: Absolutely. Halo 3 is going to be bigger than Halo and Halo 2 if for no other reason than retailers now know how big Halo 2 was. And there's not a retailer in the world that wants to get caught without stock when Halo 3 is released. They don't want to run out, and I believe the consumer hype and demand, and what we're going to do to make it one of the top 3 consumer entertainment events of the year, alongside "Spider-Man 3" and the last Harry Potter book.

GameSpy: Is the same true creatively? From a business standpoint, no question. Halo and Halo 2 meant that the Xbox was a shooting platform, and that Live was a platform to play shooters on. It took the 360 and a revamped Xbox Live service to turn the platform into something more than just a service to play shooters on. Can Halo 3 define a system as strongly as the first two games?

Shane Kim: Oh yeah. We still have a long way to go. When the top two titles on your platform are Halo and Gears of War, you still have the perception of being the "shooter-box" and the shooter platform. Even though we've done a lot to broaden our audience, and you have to in order to win this generation, I don't worry about Halo 3 being able to attract the action gamers and shooter fans to establish the system.

GameSpy: From Microsoft's perspective, how successful does Halo 3 have to be to meet expectations?

Shane Kim: It has to be really successful. We're banking on Halo 3 being a great success, and Bungie has earned that right and has given us good reason to have those expectations. Halo 3 is material to the company, and not just material to Robbie Bach's division, or the interactive entertainment business, it's actually material to Microsoft as a company, which is astounding, considering it's a fifty-billion dollar plus company.

More important than the financial importance, though, is [that] Halo 3's role in driving Xbox 360 sales and Xbox Live subscriptions is going to be even more important this time around than it was with the first Xbox. The reason why is that we have a lot of people who are ready to upgrade from the version one Xbox, and lots of PS2 owners that are ready to switch over to a next-gen system. We think we have the best solution for those folks, and Halo 3 is the biggest weapon in our arsenal by far.

GameSpy: You mentioned the importance of Halo 3 in terms of driving console and subscription numbers. How is Halo 3 going to drive Xbox Live Gold subscriptions in ways that your other titles haven't?

Shane Kim: It's the strength of the multiplayer play. You've got to be Gold to get the most out of what Halo 3 has to offer. That was an easy decision for people to make with Halo 2, and it's going to be an even easier decision to make with Halo 3. I'm very confident that it's going to drive not only Xbox Live membership numbers, but also Gold subscriptions.