Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The post where I tell Microsoft how to do bizzness

Ok it's official. The Xbox One presser yesterday was a gigantic failure. It's not zune bad right now but it's not great. Go to any gaming or tech site today and you'll see lists of the 10 worst things to come out of the press conference or similar articles about how Microsoft dropped the ball. Head over the reddit and you'll find and endless supply of memes mocking the Xbox One. Tumblr is still all about cats but you get the idea.

The sad thing is that it didn't have to be this way. If Microsoft didn't have it's head so far up it's own butt they would have realized that a lot of Xbox 360 owners have major questions and concerns over the next generation of consoles. In typical Microsoft fashion they ignored most of them and steamrolled right over the rest. I feel like the following changes to their presentation would have had them on a biscuit train with gravy wheels.

Used games. People like the idea of used games more than they actually like using them. No one really wants to go to Gamestop, trust me. Just tell people they can play used games. The supreme court has been pretty clear regarding First-Sale Doctrine. It's a fight you don't need and with digital distribution becoming the norm it's soon to be a moot point. Sometimes you just have to give the employees extra tartar sauce so you can oppress them later.

Set your price. Everyone on the net killed Sony for the lack of details (and machine) at their PS4 press conference, congratulations for following in kind. I know that Sony and Microsoft are playing chicken when it comes to price right now, but just man up and take a stand. Guess what, if you want to lower the price 6 months from now because Sony forces your hand you can do that. People will kind of be excited about it. Also offer an exclusive bundle people want and price it aggressively. Xbox One + Extra Controller + COD Ghosts + 2 months of Xbox Live. Sell it for $75 above the stand alone unit price and watch them fly off the shelf.


Enough with the holodeck. Why on earth didn't you lead with the games you wonderful idiots? I get that the TV thing is where you want to be but this is the first chance to show off your hot new video game system and you start with "look you can change the channel with your voice" and "man switching inputs on the tv used to be so hard". It's insulting to the early adopters you're trying to win over and makes you look like clowns. Stuff like the DVR capability and the fantasy football stats while you're watching a game are cool features but you don't buy a car because it has seat warmers. No one is going to buy an Xbox One because they're to stupid to use their cable remote.


Did I mention the games? They didn't look good enough and they didn't look inventive enough. Lets go back to the car analogy. Coming out and saying your new console is going to have Madden and Call of Duty is like saying the new Ford Taurus is going to have 4 wheels, no shit Sherlock. Lead with new intellectual property (or at least something exclusive like Halo) and make sure it blows us out of the water. Don't even show gameplay footage, show what's possible and just dazzle the crap out of the audience. Show a few side by side shots with the launch titles from the 360. Demonstrate tangibly just us how far we've come in 7 years. While you're at it, signing up with EA was smart but why not bring out the Bungie guys or throw a million dollars at Valve and have them say something generic and nice. Drag out Tim Shafer or Peter Molyneux, anyone you can find that will remind people that video games used to be inventive and exciting. If you don't have cool new games to show off, emphasize how easy the new architecture will be to program for and how xbox live opens up a world of independent development. Just do something, anything to get gamers excited.


Again, I'm no marketing wizard but almost everything that upset and disappointed people yesterday could have been easily avoided. I know that you don't sell the steak you sell the sizzle but you can't sell an empty sizzling plate. It's just not going to happen, just ask Sega, or Atari or Nintendo or any number of companies that were so concerned about being inventive they forgot the reason people buy their products. It's clown shoes Microsoft, clown shoes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty much every reviewer at Engadget liked what they saw and I did too. Farhad Manjoo at Slate was super in love with it as well. Not sure if the hard core gaming sites you are looking at are the target audience for the device, but there's obviously quite a few people in the tech industry that were very excited about what they saw. People already spend more time watching movies and TV on the XBoxes than playing games, so I think the direction they are going is the right one. The game reveals are going to come at E3 and per your own post a couple days ago, its really tough to get people excited about more polygons in processing power at this point. They needed something else to get people excited and think they brought it.

-Martin

kevin n. on May 23, 2013 at 11:47 AM said...

I think you identified the schism perfectly. Gadget and Tech sites think it's the bees knees. Gaming sites are ready to tar and feather the thing. Can The One survive if they alienate the gamer demo and actively drive people to the PS4?

 

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