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.
Excellent work. (Score:4, Funny)
5 internets for you!
Two Words (Score:4, Insightful)
Two More (Score:4, Funny)
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Suggestion (Score:2)
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Remember (Score:1)
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The Wii (and
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Ive noticed that the other platforms don't really have multi player games that go over 2 people. I mean im sure they do but there don't seem to be as many. Nintendo has always been good at this, from party games to Mario Kart. I usually use a Nintendo console with a reasonably large group of people. Thats one of the reasons I bought a Wii.
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Don't get me wrong, there are great online options but running an 8 player halo game over the internet is not generally a "party game" so its different than what I was trying to describe on Nintendo.
Nintendo has really gone after the market segment where a group of people get together impromptu and play some simple fun game in a group setting. I'm not talking about a Lan party where everyone brings over a system but just the sort of thing that can be picked up when you have some friends over.
Im sure there
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The last thing that most parents want is for their children to play Gears of War or Halo 2 with random asshats on line. The fact that XBox Live exists actually works against Microsoft when selling to families. Parents want a console where they can monitor who their children play with without knowing anything about TCP/IP, and where people can play together while sitting in the same room.
Microsoft is doing fairly well with the sort of gamer that plays M-rated games and sneers at the idea of sharing a scr
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Where are the 4-player PC games? (Score:1)
Online multiplayer games are really quite different from local multiplayer games. It's a different kind of socializing.
Why aren't there more local 4-player games for PCs like mine, which have a USB hub for gamepads and a TV output? Why do Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo have to approve all local 4-player games?
Online multiplayer is often not a whole lot more than single player gaming with really intelligent AI which constantly swears at you.
Unless you happen to join a clan, and the really intelligent AI swears with you, not at you.
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It's called quality control. And seeing that Nintendo and Microsoft make (and own companies that make) a lot of the greatest video games ever made, I think they're pretty good judges of quality. Sony hardly does any approval, and it shows (bucketloads of crappy titles). All they really ask is that developers actually do a good job on their games as to not make their systems look bad. As someone in a media design field, I'm ALL for quality con
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It's really the only way to avoid what happened in the early 80s. We went through it, and it sucked, and the industry almost died and rotted with bad designers who poisoned the whol
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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.
For me: (Score:4, Insightful)
Drop Price (optional, reliability is more important to me right now)
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1) Increase reliability
2) Increase reliability
3) Don't gouge us so much for DLC
My 360 crapped out on me (Ring of Death) after six months. SIX MONTHS. A $400 piece of hardware dies after six months of fairly heavy use? I've had a $500 video card, running nearly constantly, last for well over three years now.
It's great that it fell under the warranty. Fix it for free. But this can take a month or more, and you're not guaranteed a workin
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.
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Personally, I spend between 20-25 hours a week gaming and consider myself a "hardcore-light" gamer. While I am somewhat competitive (I will play the same map over and over and over just so I can improve on that one map for that one game) I still don't
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CelticWhisper's matches up with the words much better, but the more popular usage is competitive, violent, big-name titles. Generally FPS, though sometimes RTS. The primary facet is the competition part. There could be a better name for this sort of concept, but "Hardcore Gamer" is what has been assigned to it.
Simply based on the term itself I would think of CelticWhi
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I'd like to hear the term "game connoisseur", or "game enthusiast" thrown around a little more. The "hardcore gamer" is really one segment of the gamer crowd, who seems to have been able to put themselves on a pedestal above everyon
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So you can only be a hardcore gamer if you hate Mario?
A hardcore gamer is somebody who has gaming as a main hobby, games a whole freaking lot, and plays all the games he wants to, not only those that make him look cool in the eyes of his peers.
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That should be the definition of a "gore kiddy".
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.
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Re:MS is still not getting it (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I'm a bit on the fence about this. On one hand, part of the Wii's charm is that a parent wouldn't have to worry about junior getting his hands on extremely questionable games.
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...
On the other hand, one has to wonder how much that selling point is really worth. Some parents may be tu
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Well, 360 has pretty nice parental controls. You can set them up and kid will not be able to start anything with higher rating than, say "E" "T"
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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
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Also, while I do respect their interest in keeping the platform affordable, it would be nice to get an XB360 offered with built-in HDDVD without having to buy the ridiculous side car add-on.
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Because life is full of compromises. Say you have a teen and a younger kid. Or a boy and a girl. Then parents need to know what system is the most diverse instead of locking in on whatever specialty marketing has decided.
Or they dont want to pay 250 for a wii right after they bought their kid a perfectly good DS last year for 150. In this market the Wii isnt competing with MS and Sony, but with the DS.
Or they think
o'rly (Score:2)
"It's one or the other."
Yeah, that would be like Sony trying to sell a system that could play played both children's movies and porno. [circuitcity.com]
Given how huge Microsoft is, I'm not sure why they can't cover more than one market. Games like Viva Pinata prove that the 360 can render "cute" as well as "gore". ;)
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No argument from me there. Nintendo has a winner with the wiimote.
Explode (Score:2)
They have to do something (Score:4, Informative)
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Exclusive scoop : The secret strategy exposed (Score:3, Funny)
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Product1: MS xbox360
Product2: MS family oriented wii-clone
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Given how SKU-crazy Microsoft already is, why not?
They could just take the Xbox 360 and put it in a shorter, wider (less intimidating) case that comes in pastel pink or turquoise, and rebadge/repurpose it as the family-friendly "FunBox" or "PrettyPonyMachine" or somesuch. The same games would play on both systems, but they can advertise it as a wholly different line with a different marketing thrust.
redesign the controller (Score:1)
MS needs to stick with what they're good at. (Score:1)
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.
Isn't it ironic (Score:2)
Since you already have a Wii: Virtual Console. It's even going to get Neo Geo games, so KoF is a possibility.
Isn't it ironic... don't you think. It's like hardcore games, on your Wiiiii...
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Increase Reliability (Score:1)
Balance (Score:2)
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You only know that you think it will be boring... when the Wii is spectacularly set up for FPS (the wiimote as a gun, for example), as well as all the other genres.
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Wii is the Home Alone of this decade (Score:2)
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Their Plan? (Score:1)
Wrong Target (Score:2, Interesting)
Game Suggestion (Score:5, Funny)
I have a better one (Score:1, Funny)
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Not going to work. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Over-generalize and over-hype things much? It's been a little over a year and nobody (sane) is about to call anything on "winners" and "losers" of a console generation. Microsoft has been doing well with the 360, lots of great titles and Live is better than anyone could have imagined... Several sites and people have mentioned that the 360 is making microsoft Money (the Division is still in the red however). Nintendo is still raking in mone
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Apart from the PS1/PS2 though, Europe has *NEVER* picked the winning console, it was nigh-pathological.
My understanding is that the Sega Master System outsold the original NES in Europe because (a) It had a good marketing campaign and (b) Nintendo didn't (and still don't?) take the European market seriously.
Mind you, that oft-quoted Master System example is also slightly misleading; yes, it outsold the NES here, but it's all relative. Unlike the US, the UK market in the late-1980s was far more dominated by home computers. The SMS/NES sold well but were never dominant formats. It wasn't until the launch o
Wow, Microsoft is really innovating (Score:2)
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.
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Another bullshit article from analysts (Score:2)
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 (Score:1)
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).
Head of a gamer family (Score:1)
Translation... (Score:2)