Roger Smith, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, spoke with Michael Peck.
Q. Do you see the military using serious games for the Wii and Xbox 360?
A. We wanted to get on to the Microsoft Xbox because it only costs $300, when a PC may cost $1,000. They did not want to work with the military. They gave us three reasons. Number one, when they sell an Xbox 360, they lose money. It costs more to make an Xbox 360 than to sell it in the store. The only way they make that revenue up is by kids going out and buying an average of 17 of those games a year. Their concern was that the military would develop a game for the Xbox 360 and buy thousands of the boxes and buy exactly one game for each of them.

Their second concern was that the military could cause a shortage of Xbox 360s.

The third reason was around the question of, “do we want the Xbox 360 to be seen as having the flavor of a weapon? Do we want Mom and Dad knowing that their kid is buying the same game console as the military trains the SEALs and Rangers on?” They said we will not give the military a license to burn a game that runs on the Xbox 360. So we’re not pursuing it at all because they won’t. As I talk to people in my own organization and other parts of the military, I find many people don’t know that fact. Everybody is going to get around to looking into it and they don’t know that some people have already looked into it.