U360 Report Card 

Projects - A

Halo 3.  When you have a game in your stable that managed the type of numbers on release day that big time movies only dream of, you get an A grade no matter the circumstances of your other titles during the year.  I can wrap up the Projects discussion right there but I won’t because there were some other semi-gems coming from Microsoft last year.

Project Gotham Racing 4 and Forza Motorsport 2 were both solid releases in their genre last year.  I know it was a while ago but don’t forget about Crackdown, another 2007 title.  It was a great game in my opinion that held its on despite the Halo 3 beta fiasco.  There were family titles last year as well including Viva Pinata Party Animals and Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action.  There was the forgettable Fuzion Frenzy 2 as well as one of my personal favorites, Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom.  Needless to say, there was something for everyone coming out of Microsoft last year.

Community - B

I really don’t know of any company that manages to go the lengths that it does for community quite like Microsoft and its Xbox division.  I can’t deny all the PR fluff and spin on issues surrounding repairs, DRM and a few other things in the community but despite all of that it’s no question that Microsoft was a huge player within the community last year.   Play & Win opportunities, chances to mingle with celebrities…you name it and the Xbox team tried to deliver it.

From blogs to podcasts to media alike, Microsoft mixed it up well.  They were the kings of getting small and large communities together to have both goofy fun and serious fun all the same.  All extremes of the community were invited to witness “inside Xbox” on levels that impressed me.  A billion dollar company doesn’t need to cater to the interweb’s finest but Microsoft made it a point last year to do so and I reward them for that.

There were issues to consider as I mentioned above that were so glaring that it kept the A grade from being given but when all things were combined, I think their community effort throughout the year was great.

Extra Credit - C

Ok so here recently we saw some PGR4 content released on the Xbox Live Marketplace but that was 2008 and this is a report card on 2007.  With a AAA title like Halo 3, you’d think that there would be content at least for that title oozing all over the Marketplace but there hasn’t been.  The Heroic Map Pack is all there is.  Is it perhaps due to the Bungie migration or perhaps due to the fact that millions are still playing the original content? 

Who knows.  The fact remains that there hasn’t been much support in terms of Extra Credit all of last year.  It also didn’t help separating from Bungie Studios and letting BioWare float away to Electronic Arts.  Remember Bizarre Creations and Project Gotham Racing?  They’re with Activision now.  It was a rough year in the Extra Credit field.

Overall Grade