| halogamer1989 said: To Ninty fans: what type of title would MSFT have to create to keep up with Nintendo on the casual front. Also, can the XNA Comm. section make inroads into this, iyo? I believe it has the possibility. |
I think the first thing it would have to do is abandon the idea of a "casual" gamer. Nintendo's apparently adopted the philosophy and terminology of the "core" and "expanded" (note that they never use "hardcore" in their interviews or releases. Or at least, almost never, save for an occassional slip by an individual employee).
I know it seems superficial, but there's actually quite a bit of reasoning behind it. The "casual" moniker carries with it a lot of negative connotations of customer stupidity and creator superiority. Look at Epic Games' or Harmonix's use of that term, for instance. Even Ubisoft, who relies on what they call the "casuals" have only recently began to think that it was a market worth putting effort into (their president admitted as much a few months back, when he assigned the Wii Petz game to an actually talented team. For once.)
This matters because it leads to a different take and perspective on your customer. Microsoft so far has treated the mass populace fairly superficially. Games meant to appeal to them, like Scene It! or In the Movies, are not made by their best teams at all. They're outsourced to C- and D- listers, and it shows. By contrast, Nintendo has its best working on games for the expanded audience, like EAD, because it has some respect for that groups' taste and intelligence.
But that would only mark the beginning for Microsoft. In addition to reassigning some of its top talent, it would have to work on its marketing, its image, its very approach to gaming, its ultimate goal, and more. I can continue, if you're interested, but I don't want to bore you if you think I've rambled on too long.
And of course, these are just my thoughts. They could be, and probably are, at least partially off.
