Zynga: Xbox Live 'too small a demographic'

Don't worry about Farmville infiltrating your Xbox 360 (and the subsequent requests from your mom and your friends that would soon follow thereafter). According to Zynga chief game designer, Brian Reynolds, the Xbox 360 landscape is small potatoes -- Zynga's after broader audiences and the user base on one measly console is simply not big enough to warrant interest.

"[Xbox Live's] too small a demographic," Reynolds told IndustryGamers. "Think about, of my friends, how many of them own an Xbox 360? Well, I'm a game developer and I even come from a triple-A space so we might even be in the double digits... Twenty or maybe even thirty percent of my friends might have an Xbox 360, but effectively 100% of them have Facebook and effectively 100% of them have a mobile phone. Of them, probably 90% have a smartphone."

Reynolds would then go on to say that the mobile space is the next area Zynga expects to put its efforts into. He says it's all about the number of people who could possibly partake in the social experience -- on the Xbox 360, he estimates "the amount of social capital that there is isn't going to be very high" on the platform. The less people on a platform, the less revenue Zynga projects to make and, thus, the less likely it is the company will be on that platform.

"That's why right now we're on Facebook for sure, and mobile is the obvious next place for us to go because it is an inherently social platform," Reynolds concluded.

Zynga: Xbox Live 'too small a demographic' originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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