Microsoft Aims to Boost the 360's Family Appeal 90
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.
Two Words (Score:4, Insightful)
For me: (Score:4, Insightful)
Drop Price (optional, reliability is more important to me right now)
MS is still not getting it (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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:They have to do something (Score:3, Insightful)
Viva Piñata (Score:4, Insightful)
Viva Piñata is really a game for housewives. I know, because my wife (who doesn't play video games) is absolutely addicted to it.
Re:MS is still not getting it (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, there's Red Steel and Far Cry and some violent shooters, but I can rest easy knowing that junior isn't killing hookers, or chainsawing people in half, or watching limbs fly as he rolls explosive cans of propane into them...
He's ripping testicles off with pliers. Or he's using the Wiimote to make sawing motions as he cuts off heads to wear on his belt. That is, if he's playing Manhunt 2 for Wii [ign.com] which IGN called "the goriest game we have ever seen".
Re:Remember (Score:3, Insightful)
That's precisely what makes the business people unhappy about the 360. Nintendo is already making money on the Wii while Microsoft has *lost* more than $1.2 billion this year alone on the 360. What's more Nintendo is likely to sell at least 60% more consoles this year than Microsoft despite the fact that Nintendo had to deal with supply issues with their new console.
The 360 is most definitely *not* the Wii, and investors wish it was.
Re:MS needs to stick with what they're good at. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
360 horsepower vs. Kid-friendly game requirements (Score:3, Insightful)
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).