Microsoft Aims to Boost the 360's Family Appeal

Bloomberg is reporting on Microsoft's efforts to be more inclusive to 'family' game players. Essentially, Micrsoft admits they're looking to Nintendo as the generation leader this time around, with low cost and family appeal driving their sales numbers ever higher. To that end, Microsoft is looking at a possible price cut and shift in strategies to appeal to a broader audience. This dovetails with comments made by Bill Gates at the AllThingsDigital event regarding motion controls in the future of the console. "Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer wants to avoid the fate of the first Xbox. The console appealed mainly to hard-core gamers, generally males between 15 and 29 years old, and trailed Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 in sales by a 5-to-1 margin ... Microsoft's initial attempts to target children didn't live up to the company's expectations. A November game called Viva Piñata, in which kids build a garden and raise animals that look like piñatas brought to life, didn't make it into the top 20, even with a Saturday morning cartoon created to promote the game." It might not have sold, but VP was an awesome game.

Excellent work.

You've managed to spell Microsoft incorrectly.

5 internets for you!

Two Words

Price Drop

Two More

Fix Theconstantbreaking

Suggestion

Don't use a demon possessed baby in the advertisements.

Remember

The 360 is not Wii.

For me:

Increase reliability

Drop Price (optional, reliability is more important to me right now)

MS is still not getting it

You can't on the one hand promote games like Halo 3 and Gears of War as your premiere games (and whoever actually publishes them, MS has gone out of their way to promote the system using them) and then on the other hand try to market your system as a "family system". It's one or the other.

I know everybody wants to live in a world where everything is all things to all people, but it doesn't work like that. The fact is there is competition out there doing the family thing better than MS ever will - namely Nintendo. So why would a parent buy an Xbox 360 to play games with their kids when the Wii exists?

I hate to tell MS, but the 360 is going to meet the exact same fate as the original Xbox - it's the system for hardcore gamers. If MS wants it to be anything else, then they need to focus like a laser beam on making it something else - they can't throw all their weight behind MA-rated violent shooters like they have been, then whine about how families aren't buying the system. That's a bit like a porn movie publisher wondering why people keep spending money going to Disneyland instead of buying porn movies.

MS can't be the "family game" company as long as they keep promoting themselves with MA-rated shooters any more than Nintendo can be the "hardcore gamer" company as long as they keep promoting themselves with Mario and Pokemon. Companies have to make choices, and these are the choices they've made. It just so happens that Nintendo's strategy is working and MS's isn't - but if MS wants to change their strategy, then they need to actually change their strategy. Just saying they want some of that audience isn't going to accomplish anything.

Re:MS is still not getting it

I don't think he's saying that, he's just saying that Nintendo directs their advertising energies in other directions.

At the end of the day, you're just arguing semantics. "Hardcore gamer" is not some certifiable title that you can get. Like you said, it's about how much you play. For the bulk of the history of console video gaming, the people who have played lots and lots of video games have been 14-25 males, so they've basically become synomomus with "hardcore gaming" so games made to target the hardcore gaming crowd (which historically has been the largest and most profitable market) have primarily targeted that demographic group.

The vocabulary you use to describe your view of the gaming world is different than the vocabulary used by marketing people and executives, and even many other gamers.

Re:MS is still not getting it

You can't on the one hand promote games like Halo 3 and Gears of War as your premiere games (and whoever actually publishes them, MS has gone out of their way to promote the system using them) and then on the other hand try to market your system as a "family system". It's one or the other.

Why must it be one or the other? You can even have two separate advertising campaigns.
If I were a parent, I would like not having to buy two pieces of hardware, to do essentially the same thing. I am not saying I would want the kids to play my games (or for me to play theirs) but I wouldn't want to have to duplicate hardware.

They have to do something

Even with their 1 year release headstart, Nintendo is quickly approaching them [vgchartz.com] in systems sold. It's become apparent that you can only sell so many systems to hardcore gamers, and that it's hard to sell expensive systems, even to hardcore gamers. Targetting children and families cannot be done by releasing a single game, or by releasing some peripherals which have motion sensing. It must be something that is the core of your system. Looking at the XBox 360 controller is daunting for people who aren't hardcore gamers, as is the size and look of the entire console. They're going to have a hard time turning things around for their current system. However, if they want to make a start, how about releasing a web browser. It's not like they don't already have one.

Exclusive scoop : The secret strategy exposed

It's pretty simple, really; package a Wii with the 360. The Wii60 package will be a force to be reckoned with and will leave the PS3 in the dust.

redesign the controller

The average family non-gamer isn't going to use a controller with 3 different control sticks, 4 triggers and a pile of face buttons; it has to be simplified to be made "family friendly". But since it's far too late to make that change now without breaking every 360 title out there, Microsoft's quest to capture some of Nintendo's market is in vain for this generation.

MS needs to stick with what they're good at.

MS made a solid console for the hardcore gamers. They need to stick with that. Nobody's trying to play puzzle, party, kiddy games on xbox. I want some violent adult shit on there. Competitive games with Live support. I was going to buy a 360 on day one but there are not enough hardcore games out. The last thing I want to see is MS putting out family crap. Where's the fighting games? Where's King of Fighters? How about some shooters, Ikaruga 2 anyone? Games these days are dumbed down and soft. I want some something I can't beat on the first or even 10th try.

Let the Wii have their market. MS your Way too late to take it away from them. Focus on Your market.
I've got a Wii already. When I want those kinds of games I'll play them on Wii. MS, give me a reason to buy a 360. I've been waiting for one since launch.

Re:MS needs to stick with what they're good at.

The problem with your idea is that Microsoft lost $1.2 billion on the XBox this last fiscal year. It's easy to say that Microsoft should simply target hard core gamers, but promoting to hard core gamers doesn't pay the bills. The money is clearly in the market that Nintendo is targeting with the Wii.

Microsoft has promised investors that the XBox would make a profit in the year starting in July, and that isn't going to happen if everyone purchases from Nintendo instead. To a certain extent Microsoft is only still in the console business because it can afford to lose more than its competitors. "Willing to lose more money" is not an attribute that investors prize very highly.

Increase Reliability

The one thing all "older" family members expect from a console is stability and reliability. Just imagine your dad in front of a flashing ring of death. *shudders*

Balance

I don't think that it's the family appeal of the Wii that is drawing people. I believe it is the price and the novelty of it. At least in my family, I have an original XBox and a 360 (Thank you very much EveryTenMinutes.com/Mountain Dew), and my brothers all have PS/2's. When they were deciding which game console to get next, the immediately ruled out the PS/3 on price and what they considered to be lame titles. Despite the fact that they have kids 10 down to 3, they think the Wii is actually too kid-friendly, so their tweens will get bored, and so will the adults.

The 360 had a year to itself, and sold like it did. The problem it has is that the Wii came in at a significantly lower price-point, and didn't try to wow anybody with the graphics and sound, unlike the 360. That said, GRAW2 is insane (the smoke grenades especially), and the 360 just flat-out r0x. It would be nice if there were more kids games for it, or a way to plug in our XBox-era DDR pads, but they seem to enjoy Lego Star Wars and DDR on the old XBox just fine.

For all of that, my four-year-old daughter likes nothing better than beating the **** out of some level 25 prima donna on the new Halo3/Halo2 maps.

Wii is the Home Alone of this decade

A movie that was merely pretty good, Home Alone, went to gross nearly half a billion dollars (third highest at the time) because it was just about the only family movie to be released around that time. Looks like the same thing happened with the Wii.

Their Plan?

Making a plug-in for Wii games and remotes!

Wrong Target

Look, they say family market, which means they're targetting the quite concentrated range of 6-60 year olds.If you target the parents and the kids at the same time you aren't going to please them both, and at best if you do please them both they'll buy one for the house and probably share it. However, only target kids, or only target adults, much easier to please your target market, but at the same time, the same amount of people end up with xboxs in their homes. Why is common sense a quality completely lost in corporations.

Game Suggestion

Microsoft should create a new line of games for kids. I suggest starting with Super Mario Monopoly. You play an Italian plumber who's running a very very large software company. Your opponent Bowser runs a search engine company. You play by taking money from consumers, collecting other small companies, and throwing chairs at your opponents. Fun for the whole family!

Not going to work.

The only way you can pick up the family safe demographic is by discarding all other demographics, and it takes years for parental trust to change for a given company. They couldn't take the family demographic without throwing away everything they already have, or coming up with some form of radical departure from current business models.

Whereas I applaud Microsoft for looking to learn from its competition, and for admitting that this generation belongs to Nintendo, this is not something they can adapt by graft without doing tremendous damage to themselves. It would, in my opinion as a professional game designer, be a fatal error.

Wow, Microsoft is really innovating

It looks like Microsoft has been working on their innovation - after all, they have been talking about it for long enough. This time around, the Microsoft innovation is only a year behind the original.

Viva Piñata

Anyone who's played Viva Piñata knows that it's not a kid's game. It's too difficult for young children and too silly for older children. The marketing droids who came up with that angle should be taken out back and shot.

Viva Piñata is really a game for housewives. I know, because my wife (who doesn't play video games) is absolutely addicted to it.

Another bullshit article from analysts

The whole article is just speculation (some of it stupid) from analysts. The only exception is this sentence:

To lure them, the world's largest software maker says it plans to add more family games and redo retail displays to make the children's titles easier to find.

Of course, there's no mention of what these games will be or when they'll be released, so even with this statement we still don't know anything.

Ironic

I find it ironic that everyone always used to say that the Gamecube failed because it didn't have the "hardcore" games like GTA and Halo, but now all of the sudden the Wii is successful because it has "family appeal". That argument just doesn't float if you ask me. I think that the Wii is popular because it's new, different, and has a controller that's more "inviting" than the average console controller (with a little bit of "fadness" thrown in for good measure), and not because it appeals to moms and old people or anything like that.

(And just for the record I'm a 360 fanboy and don't even own a Wii)

360 horsepower vs. Kid-friendly game requirements

It's hard to consider it a fault of Microsoft that the system appeals mostly with hard-core gamers when we already know hard core gamers in the PC world are more than happy to spend a hefty premium to have the fastest hardware available. The power of the hardware and the bragging rights that come with being privileged enough to own such hardware is often far more important to a hard-core gamer than the games themselves.

On the other hand, people who are planning to buy mostly kid-friendly games aren't going to care what system they buy just as long as it's not too expensive. Most kids who'd play these games aren't going to care about how good the graphics of a game are, just as long as they can still play the game in question. For people like this, the PS2 works just as well as the 360. The 360 would simply be unnecessary overkill for playing the latest kids movie turned game of the week.

If Microsoft truly wants to have the 360 appeal to this area of the gaming market, they shold price the 360 competatively with the PS2 (or at least the Wii), rather than trying to force the system's legitimacy with games like Viva Pinata (which could have ran on the PS2 by trading the model complexity for a few texturing tricks).

Head of a gamer family

My wife beta tests nearly every new mmorpg that comes out. Ive been playing FPSes since wolfenstein 3d covering duke nukem, and every half life & mod there is. Our kids have an atari, a nintendo, a nintendo 64, a sega cd, a playstation a playstation2 and a huge collection of all kinds of other made for the TV games. We don't have cable access. We don't have satellite TV we simply play games.we have 1 tv and 5 computers. The reason we do not own an Xbox or Xbox 360 is simple. It costs way too much, and to play most games on the internet requires a paying even more for a subscription to xbox live!

Translation...

"Oh shit, Nintendo's back... what are we going to do???"