Nickster’s View

According to the BBC website, Microsoft plans on having shipped 10 million units of Xbox 360s by the time Sony’s PS3 is launched in November.

This announcement literally the day after Sony announces the price and specification for their 3rd generation console, and with an unexpected visit from Bill himself to deliver the news. Uncanny timing for sure - absolutely motivated by the fact that Microsoft heavily subsidised 360 and rushed it to market.

Here’s the problem. Xbox 360 is a serious let down for gamers. Being first to market gave MS a massive opportunity to grab some of Sony’s dominance, but instead they’ve spent millions subsidising a substandard console. Why?

1) Games Support

The launch games for 360 were a massive let down. There was no ‘killer app’ or got to have game, like in the case of Halo on the 360. It’s a games console, and if the games available are crap, that makes it a crap games console. Furthermore, after months and months there are STILL no decent games out for it. Personally when I was playing it I was playing Live Arcade games more than the £40 titles - and that isn’t worth a £300 console. Now I play Eve Online on the PC

2) Media Integration

You’d have to be a certified moron or living on the dark side of the moon to not see that the living room is the new centre of the mass market computing world. Media centres and media integration is all the rage (and with good cause). So why is it that MS in their infinite wisdom decided to cripple Xbox 360 so that you cannot stream video from your PC UNLESS YOU HAVE WINDOWS MEDIA CENTRE INSTALLED ON IT??! I’m not going to wipe my machine and install Windows Media Centre just because I want to stream videos to the living room. Why couldn’t they just let me stream it without? My chipped Xbox1 has BETTER functionality that XBOX 360 and at a fraction of the price.

3) Overheating and Ugliness Issues

Who on earth wants to put a brick like the 360 PSU on display in their living rooms? And if you hide it away somewhere, the system overheats because that brick needs airflow around it. This is such a problem that there are a number of 3rd party water cooling solutions for the 360. So, you spend £300 on a console that overheats….and STILL overheats in later revisions.

4) Internet

I couldn’t believe that Microsoft didn’t put a browser on the XBOX. When 360 came out without a browser I was dumbfounded. WHY? It has an internet connection, it links to the television, it now has regular USB ports for a keyboard and mouse. Why can’t we use it to browse the web? And MS wonder why people subvert their technology by hacking it.

5) Microsoft Live Voice Communication

One of the best moves that MS has made, imho - to make all games on the XBOX use voice comms. The Xbox Live service itself I have a hard time finding fault with. The execution is fantastic, and games like PGR2 (note, not PGR3) provided (imo) one of the best games interfaces to date. Live was seamless, the game was brilliant - all was good.

So WTF happened? If you try to play any game that ISN’T a mature title (e.g. Madden 200x, Tiger Woods 200x) like the Tony Hawks skateboarding series, the gaming experience is ruined by screaming american kids. It’s intolerable having someone screaming ‘WTFOMGN00B’ every 3 seconds WITHOUT THE SKILLS TO BACK IT UP. Smacktalking is one thing, but talking shit is another. Xbox live is generally filled with people talking shit. This isn’t Microsoft’s problem or fault, but it’s a sad fact of 360 gaming these days. There are solutions, but they haven’t come to light yet and at this point I’d guess there are legions of users leaving the service altogether. Maybe I’m just too old to game on a console anymore - which is shit in itself. Shouldn’t have to be this way.

6) Games

The games are shit. Oh, I think I mentioned that already.

So, MS were first to market with their 3rd generation console. They produced a crippled and substandard product with bad games support. I suspect the vast majority of PS2 games will not have switched over, and are waiting for the PS3. MS have totally lost their advantaged position, and more importantly put themselves at a disadvantage - (a) by killing the brand amongst gamers with any clue and (b) by subsidising that garbage to make bad technology affordable.

So Mr Gates announcement yesterday comes as no surprise. They’re running scared because they’re about to get utterly destroyed by PS3 sales at a cost of millions.

Microsoft: When you start listening to your market and stop trying to control it, you’ll start winning. Until that point, you’ll continue to alienate - and make financial losses.

N

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 2:23 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.