#Microsoft Goes Mainstream, and Other News of the Gamer World

/*title:微软朝向主流用户，其他新闻—玩家世界 */
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LOS ANGELES — Ever since Microsoft waded into the video game wars with the introduction of the original Xbox in 2001, the company has spared little expense in trying to establish its bona fides with hard-core gamers. From the physical appearance of the first Xbox — hulking, extruded black plastic — to the testosterone-laden, shoot-em-up essence of its signature game franchise, Halo, Microsoft’s first, perhaps only, priority has been to reach the young men at gaming’s historical roots.

洛杉矶—自从微软在原款Xbox的引导下于2001年艰难进入视频游戏的竞争中后，公司节省了一点点花在努力确保对铁杆玩家的诚意上的资金。从第一款Xbox的机身外观—笨重，挤压成型的黑色塑料—到激动人心的，shoot-em-up游戏的特署专营权，天哪，微软首要的，可能是唯一的，优先要做的事就是在游戏的历史根源上感召年青人。

Until now. In a significant shift, Microsoft introduced a new strategy on Monday to help its Xbox 360 console appeal to the broad mainstream. Lured by games and consoles like Guitar Hero, The Sims, World of Warcraft and Nintendo’s Wii, millions of consumers who never thought of themselves as gamers have begun to play in recent years. Mostly for that reason, the global game industry could approach $50 billion in revenue this year, by some projections.

直到现在，在一次重大的转变中，微软于周一提出了一项新策略来帮助Xbox360游戏机吸引大众目光。被游戏和诸如吉他英雄，模拟人生，魔兽世界和任天堂Wii的操纵平台吸引，无数从未认为自己是玩家的用户开始在近年游戏。主要因为该原因，据推测，全球的游戏产业今年能收入近500亿美元。

So at the annual E3 convention here, the Microsoft Corporation announced a collection of new games and services for the Xbox 360 that are meant to appeal to the everyday consumer.

因此在这儿的年度E3会议上，微软公司发表了Xbox 360新游戏和新服务集锦，意在吸引每一位用户。

“For the last few years we have consciously and continuously fed the core gamer audience and now we are reaching that inflection point where we have to reach out to the mainstream consumer and bring them into the Xbox 360,” David Hufford, Microsoft’s director for Xbox product management, said in an interview.

“前些年，我们已有意识地不断满足铁杆玩家，现在我们正完成该转折点—我们不得不迎合主流用户并把他们带入Xbox 360，”David Hufford，微软Xbox产品管理理事，在一次访问中说。

“And what really is appealing to that mainstream consumer is that social experience, in the living room or online,” he said. “Whether it’s the older consumer or the Facebook generation, they see games not as a solitary experience but as something you do with friends and family, and that’s what we want to deliver this fall.”

“然而真正吸引主流用户的是社交体验，在起居室中或在网上，”他说。“不论是年长的用户还是“脸谱一族”，他们不把游戏看成单独体验，而是作为你和朋友、家人一起做的事，而那就是我们在这个秋天想要移交的东西。”

At the core of Microsoft’s initiative is a new interface for the Xbox 360 that incorporates humanlike “avatars” representing players. Users will be able to customize their avatars and socialize with other players, even outside a particular game. Nintendo has successfully used a similar approach with its Wii, in which each person creates a more cartoony figure called a Mii. Sony is also working on such a system with a new service for its PlayStation 3 called Home.

微软创新的核心是全新的 Xbox 360游戏界面，其中加入了代表玩家的人型“化身”。用户可以对游戏对象进行设置并和其他玩家交往，甚至在特定的游戏外也可。任天堂已成功用它的 Wii施行了相似的做法，让每个人都能创造一个叫作Mii的卡通形象。索尼公司也在研发类似系统，为它的PlayStation 3设置了一个新服务器，并称其为Home。

In Microsoft’s system, users will be able to share photographs with one another across the Xbox Live network and also watch movies together in real time, even if they are thousands of miles apart.

在微软的系统中，用户可以通过Xbox生活网络系统和另一人分享照片，也可一同实时性观看电影，尽管他们相隔数千英里。

In addition to the new avatar system, Microsoft announced a partnership with Netflix enabling Netflix subscribers to watch any of more than 10,000 movies and television shows over the Xbox 360. Microsoft already offers some films and television shows for download, and on Monday the company said that Xbox Live had generated more than $1 billion in revenue since the Xbox 360’s debut in 2005.

除了虚拟身份系统外，微软公司宣布了和Netflix公司的伙伴关系，使Netflix的用户能在Xbox 360上观看任何10,000多部电影和电视秀。微软已经提供了一些供下载的电影和电视秀，且公司在周一表示自从Xbox 360在2005年首次亮相，Xbox Live已产生10多亿美元的收益。

Driving home the company’s new bid for the mainstream, Microsoft also introduced family-oriented games, including a new entry in its Viva Piñata franchise and a madcap B-movie simulator called You’re in the Movies.

开车回家—微软公司对主流用户的新企图，微软还推出东方家庭游戏，包括它们新通过的Viva Piñata特许经营权和称为“你在电影中”的madcap B-movie模拟器 。

But a video game business cannot survive on family-friendly fare alone. To appeal to more traditional gamers, Microsoft offered a well-received look at the post-apocalyptic role-playing games Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 (a sequel to one of the most highly regarded games of 2006).

但是视频游戏商业不能仅依托家庭有好型顾客而生存。为了吸引更多的传统玩家，微软对后世界末日角色扮演游戏—《降尘3》和《齿轮世界2》（2006年最受观注的游戏之一的续集），给予了备受欢迎的观注。

Perhaps of most interest to serious gamers, at the Microsoft briefing Square Enix of Japan showed a beautiful trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, scheduled for release next year. Previous Final Fantasy games have been available only on Sony consoles, but on Monday, in a coup for Microsoft, Square Enix said that Final Fantasy XIII would also be released for the Xbox 360.

或许，职业玩家最大的兴趣是在微软新闻发布会上日本的Square Enix展示的《最终幻想XIII》—计划明年发行—华丽的预告片。先前的最终幻想系列游戏只能在索尼游戏平台上运行，但是星期一，对微软的变更中，Square Enix称《最终幻想XIII》也会在Xbox 360中发行。

Later in the day Electronic Arts, the big United States game publisher, held a presentation to show off its lineup for the holiday season and next year. Predictably, Spore, an evolutionary biology simulator from Will Wright, the creator of SimCity and The Sims, looked almost frighteningly addictive. Spore is scheduled for a September release, and Mr. Wright said that players had already created more than 1.7 million fictional species using the game’s demonstration version.

在当天晚些时候，Electronic Arts公司，美国有名的游戏发行商，举行新闻发布会来炫耀它在假日时节和明年要发行的东西。可以预见，Spore，来自Will Wright—《模拟城市》和《模拟人生》的创造者—的生物进化模拟器，看起来几乎令人震惊地着迷。Spore计划9月发行该游戏，同时，Wright先生说玩家已经用游戏的演示版创造出170多万虚构物种。

Electronic Arts has long been a leader in appealing to casual gamers, and to reinforce that success, the company showed a new game called SimAnimals, which appears poised to do well among children, especially girls. The company also moved to reinforce its credibility with core gamers with looks at Dragon Age: Origins, from the BioWare studio, and Left 4 Dead, a survival horror game from the Valve studio. BioWare and Valve are among the more respected game developers.

Electronic Arts公司长久以来在吸引流动玩家方面是领导者，且为了加强该在领域的成功，公司展示了一个称作《模拟动物》的新游戏，该游戏似乎准备取悦儿童，由其是女孩。该公司还通过对《龙时代：起源》（来自BioWare工作室）和《死亡游戏》（来自Valve工作室的恐怖生存游戏）的观注，移向加强自身在铁杆玩家中的可信度。BioWare和Valve位列较受重视的游戏开发者之中。

In a surprise, Electronic Arts announced a publishing partnership with id Software, the inventors of the first-person shooter genre and the developers of the seminal Doom and Quake franchises. John Carmack, id’s lead programmer, showed a brief snippet from a coming game, Rage.

令人惊讶的是，Electronic Arts公司宣布了和ID软件公司的发行合作伙伴关系，ID软件公司是第一人称射击游戏的创造者和创始Doom，Quake专营权的开发者。John Carmack，ID公司的首席程序编制员，展示了一款即将完成的游戏（《Rage》）的简短片断 。

But the hit of the Electronics Arts presentation was a new science-fiction horror game called Dead Space, scheduled to be released for PCs, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in October. Not for children or the squeamish, Dead Space takes place on a space station where something has gone horribly wrong. (The combat revolves around what was described as strategic dismemberment.) The animation and the evocative tension at its presentation appeared to be of a very high quality, as long as you don’t mind flying body parts.

但是给Electronic Arts公司发布会以打击的是一款叫作《死亡空间》的新恐怖游戏，计划在10月发行，适用于PCs（个人电脑），Xbox 360和Playstation 3。《死亡空间》不适合儿童和易受惊吓人群，游戏的剧情发生在一个空间站—那里的情况遭透地失常。（争论围绕如何描述战略性肢解。）发布会上的兴奋和连锁的紧张气氛似乎预示着游戏的高品质，只要你不介意游戏中飞舞的肢体。

Nintendo and Sony are scheduled to hold their briefings on Tuesday.

任天堂和索尼公司计划在周二举行新闻发布会。