Development
Manuel Bronstein, director of 1 vs. 100 for Microsoft Studios, describes the game as the realization of Microsoft's "vision for programmatic interactive experiences" delivered via Xbox Live Primetime. The game was due to be released in November 2008 with the "New Xbox Experience" update but it was delayed (as was the rest of the planned Primetime content). While fairly simple in visual appearance, Bronstein explained that the game was in development for more than a year because of technical hurdles, noting that making sure "hundreds of thousands of people see the host and answer the questions at the exact same time and handling prizes and all the things associated with cheating made for an interesting technical challenge."
Bronstein commented that Microsoft met with the producers of the popular television game shows American Idol and Survivor before partnering with Endemol and choosing 1 vs. 100 "because of its social elements." Joerg Bachmaier, senior VP of digital media for Endemol said "We see as a replication of the show on another platform... Except now it's more active. Nobody is just sitting back and watching."
Microsoft has stated that the first season of the game would be a "pilot season". Future seasons were dependent upon the success of the show's ability to generate advertiser revenue. Sprint and Honda each paid around $1 million to become primary sponsors of the first season and Microsoft is trying to sell additional one-off or occasional commercial spots.
An open beta was made available to Canadian subscribers with a gold subscription from May 8 through May 24, 2009. The open beta was re-opened and extended to subscribers in the USA on June 1, 2009. Though it was still in beta, on July 10, Microsoft began awarding actual prizes in the North American beta (previously players testing the game simply earned entries into a sweepstakes). They also confirmed that the beta season that commenced June 1 would last 13 weeks. The beta season for both the US and Canada ended on August 31, 2009.
The open beta for the United Kingdom began on July 10, 2009, and both Germany and France began on July 12, 2009.
Based on input from the first season, changes were incorporated into the game for the second season. The player selected as "The One" was found to receive a plethora of messages when they were playing, and thus in the second season, "The One" had their online status set to "Busy", preventing these messages from distracting the player. "The One" also entered the virtual set in a more dramatic fashion.
Read more about this topic: 1 Vs. 100 (Xbox 360 Video Game)
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