Microsoft sees Nintendo as its main rival, has Sony already in the bag

[JWeinCom]

"Ouch. Okay, I wasn't expecting that. What if multitasking on your TV was something they wanted, not to be tech savy and hip but just because it was more convenient in general and made the experience more organic, more intuitive and more responsive?"

"What if The Walking Dead had a quality that other Zombie movies didn't have and those who appreciated that quality also flocked to other things with that type of quality, a quality that makes things a classic?"


Some people out there have a legitimate need for multitasking on their TV. Some people want a tablet because they actually need to compute on the go. Some people actually like the walking dead because it's a good show. Some people like Call of Duty because it's a good game. And then there are others who want to multitask on their TV because Microsoft told them they want to (maybe, we'll see), there are people who watch the walking dead solely because of hype, their are people who buy Call of Duty because their friend plays call of duty, and there are people who buy an iPad because it's an iPad and you should really have an iPad.

I believe Microsoft is appealing to the latter crowd. They're inventing a need that, in my opinion, simply doesn't exist. To quote Phil Spencer "My experience is about communicating with my friends, while I'm watching TV, while I might have music on, and at the same time am playing a game." Seriously now... does the average person really need to do this, or want to do this? Nope. But Microsoft will try their hardest to convince you that you do. Maybe I just don't get those young whippersnappers.

"Another thing, what if Nintendo does Mario and TVii, and MS providing competitive services to those new features such as TVii means MS is taking cues from Nintendo, whether they compete on the Mario front or not?"

You're acting as though Nintendo TVii is a unique thing. Pretty much every device does stuff like that. Nintendo's approach is a bit unique, but basically it's a streaming service/universal remote.  It's cool, and maybe something a bit unique, but its based on what other companies and devices have been doing.  My cell phone streams netflix, an iPad can control my TV, my 3DS could do Netflix, I could browse the internet on like five different devices at arms reach, etc. Sure Nintendo has streaming services, but they didn't invent them or anything.

Besides, Microsoft has been pursuing these partnerships for a long time. It wasn't too long ago that they got on the stage at E3 and bored us to death by showing us how they had this new and exciting partnership with ESPN so you can rewind football games. Microsoft's been pushing for multimedia stuff for years now. This isn't a reaction to Nintendo. Besides, TVii is really a minor feature. Nintendo hasn't really touted it or talked much about it since E3. I don't think Microsoft designed their whole console to combat TVii. Talk about overkill.