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How Gears of War defined the development of Xbox 360 hardware for Microsoft, according to Phil Spencer
How big was Gears of War for Xbox 360? Actually, without it the system wouldn't be half as strong
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The Xbox 360 is a defining part of any gamer's entertainment center, and in a panel discussion with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer here at PAX West 2024, it was revealed how the third-person shooter Gears of War wasn't just a fundamental game for the system - but actually charted the hardware development of the Xbox 360 entirely.
Spencer revealed that the decision for Microsoft to partner with Gears of War wasn't a one-off, but actually part of a multi-step plan for the then in-development Xbox 360 - and the game itself was a "fundamental" part in deciding the hardware of the system as a whole.
Spencer reveals that as it came time for decisions to be made about the hardware specs of the Xbox 360, he brought a build of Gears of War into a meeting with Microsoft executives to make the case for the Xbox 360 to increase the RAM for the system.
"We brought in Gears to say what we could do with the extra RAM that we were going to put in the 360," says Spencer. "The visual fidelity of that game made us push the decisions."
Originally, the Xbox 360 was intended to have 256 MB of RAM, but after Spencer made the case with Gears of War it was decided that the RAM be doubled for the system. At the time, Spencer was strictly on the software side of things as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, but in his current role as CEO of Microsoft Gaming he sees how much of a risk it was to increase the RAM on the Xbox 360.
"The cost is really significant. The bet that you're going to sell tens of millions of these, and every incremental dollar (and it was may more than a dollar) that this extra RAM would hit on the box. It better pay off, and I think it did."
The Xbox 360 set a new bar for graphics in the game industry, and Spencer points to Gears of War being a "fundamental part of that before we even locked the hardware spec. And what it was going to mean to have games that look this amazing on the platform. Thank goodness it was there, because it really helped 360 and what it became."
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