Shack: I'm going to play Devil's Advocate. One of the things some people are going to say is that despite your enthusiasm, this is all really just a ploy to grab some quick cash on the DLC side of things. How would you respond to that?

Chris Early: If it was really all about the money, why would I do a 100 point piece of DLC instead of a 59 or 60 dollar game as a direct digital download? We will make far more revenue when we enable direct digital download than we do by enabling premium downloadable content, from a sheer dollars perspective.

First off, to get DLC to work, that means you've got to buy the game somewhere first, so we've already restricted the market. And then we're only selling to that piece of the market, and then not all of them are going to buy. So if it really was all about the money, I made the wrong choice.

So it's not all about the money. I think it's all about engaging a player and extending that gaming experience in a way that you couldn't do before. I know when I read a good book, I want that book to be longer. I want to read a few more chapters. I want that sequel to be there as soon as I finish a book because I like that book, I want to be engaged.

Michael Wolf: I think part of it too goes back to what Microsoft has been doing, and continues to invest in Windows gaming with the Games for Windows brand, which we don't get any licensing or any sort of monetary pay for games that carry that brand. We don't see any of that revenue.

We are trying to grow the Windows gaming ecosystem. We are trying to provide more ways for publishers to be more successful, and for consumers to have an easier way of consuming that content. And so doing things like this are going to make the publishers more likely to invest more in their PC gaming areas because they're going to be able to have better experiences of selling to their customers, which will let them do more content for the consumers, they get more games, and it sort of just continues to go from there.

Shack: So it's a circular thing.

Chris Early: It's a beneficial cycle, as opposed to us really trying to make the most out of it. And when we look at it, the revenue splits are mostly the publisher anyway. They're the ones who are making the big money when it comes to any of the DLC that gets sold here.

Shack: Can you share what your royalty take is on DLC sales?

Chris Early: Yeah, it's the same as Xbox Live Arcade. [laughs] See how I managed to answer that without answering it?

Shack: [laughs] Well done. Down the line, do you have any plans to integrate the Marketplace into Windows 7?

Chris Early: You know, that's a great question. I would love to do that at some level, but we have to kind of be really careful. Because as the operating system platform owners as Microsoft, we have to be careful with what we put in there in terms of an overall distribution.

If we were going to create this as an open game service, that we weren't going to manage, that anybody could get to, kind of like Games Explorer is, then we could include it. But if it's a Microsoft-managed service that we're going to look at from a profitable standpoint, and try to manage this games service, and make money doing it, and enhance the PC ecosystem, we can't use the Windows operating system as a vehicle for distributing it. That's the line we have to be careful with.

Shack: Any plans to carry over elements of the New Xbox Experience update, such as the party system?

Michael Wolf: That would be a good idea. [laughs]

Chris Early: And it's a good thing that we already have the technology built into the Live service. [laughs]

I mean, from an evolution standpoint, we consistently look at the features that we're developing on the Live service infrastructure and how can we bring them to light on both platforms. Now, in all fairness, avatars would be great to bring out. But as we're bringing them out on the Xbox--and we're working on that right now to bring them out in just a couple weeks--I don't know that we'd necessarily be doing it in parallel.

We're going to bring it onto one place, and take those best features and bring em out in the next place, and so on. So we'll look to continue to do that right kind of development. And also, I don't think you always see every feature on each platform. So like, in a couple weeks you'll be able to watch Netflix on your Xbox. And you can already do that on your PC--so do we need to add that feature? Probably not. So you will see feature differentiations between the platforms. You will see us cater to a mouse and keyboard. You'll see Xbox Live cater to the controller.

Shack: The Valve guys are also looking into providing automatic driver updates, as well as suggesting optimal hardware upgrades on a per-game basis. Are you considering adding similar functionality to GFW Live down the road?

Chris Early: Well there's a couple things already that Microsoft offers that does that. First off is the Windows Experience, the numeric rating. And also on GamesforWindows.com, there's a system adviser which lets you look at a game and it will analyze your system and talk about what pieces that will give you the biggest bang for upgrading.

Shack: So would you ever incorporate that directly into Games for Windows? What about driver updates?

Chris Early: So I've thought, over the last dozen years or so, about how far do you go in keeping people up to date, automatically or notifying them and things like that. So what you'll see in Windows 7 is a number of notification-type features that come out from the platform level. We made the decision not to solve that from our proprietary service, but to solve it for all Windows gamers from the operating system level. So you'll be able to see a number of ways that things can get updated that don't involve GFW Live at all.

If I put my little hat on that says Games for Windows Live Guy, would I rather that have been just for us? Sure. But I made the choice, and since both teams work for me, I was like, "No, this is a better Windows gaming thing rather than just Games for Windows Live."

Shack: I assume you guys are pretty optimistic about the digital download market in general.

Chris Early: Well, first off, we're not analysts, but looking at the analysts, I am very heartened by the numbers I see. When IDC says this year, $3.5 billion in online revenue from the PC, and in 2012 it's $15 billion, that's great growth. And I would happily stand by that style of dying industry any day. [laughs] I'll ride that sucker right down.

And that's the point: I don't think it is dying. And looking at things that we're doing, like enabling the DLC, and enabling publishers to take advantage of that, I think we're helping that segment of the market grow as well.

Shack: Thanks guys.