Microsoft never lost me. And in truth - they never lost most of their potential user base.
The obsessive gaming 'core', i.e those who check internet gaming forums every 10 minutes, represent an absolute minority of the gaming world. And there's clearly a subsection of core gamers who want Microsoft to fail, no matter what. No doubt as a result of their loyalty to a different console brand.
But the truth is that the vast majority of those tens of millions of console gamers, don't really obsess over games and have such entrenched gaming brand warfare like we do.
The main thing that Microsoft should do now - is lower their price. Keep Kinect 2. The big mistake with Kinect 1 is that it was a peripheral that MS had to then market and in doing so make us think they didnt care about the core gamer anymore.
MS should just bite the bullet and lower the price. The main difference now being that big boy Sony is also in town, has a long term fan base, has an image of appealing to the gaming enthusiasts, and seems to be currently more in tune with the rants of the internet forums. And no doubt loving every minute of MS's current fumblings and policy reversals. Even though they themselves will almost certainly have considered DRM. They themselves are following MS's route of charging for online. And really just NEED to be making more money, unlike MS who are boasting record profits at the moment.
And while we're at it:
Kinect: As a 'core gamer' I own Kinect, but never use it. My kids love Happy Action Theater (Double Fine's Excellent Kinect Game) and there are a few good kinect games like Child of Eden, Dance Central, Fruit Kinect, Gunstringer.
Most are just pants. But mainly because Kinect is currently just some beta tech demo and doesnt work well. The lag is terrible and the resolution low. And core gamers want to sit on their butt playing games with a controller. Still as an interface UI device, and a tool to augment games, its fine. Its just that Kinect 1 is a bit broken.
Kinect 2, which looks positively space age, seemingly solves this with faster data transfer speeds, higher resolution and better tech all round. However its still an extension of the user interface. Core gamers will prefer to sit down and use a controller. But they might not mind being able to 'Call Friend' and have a video pop up to speak to their mates in game ,whilst controlling some giant robot in a fire fight. Microsofts big kinect mistake was selling it as a separate peripheral in the first place, and marketing the crap out of it, making the gaming enthusiast think that Microsoft had lost the plot. I mean - remember the kid playing with Skittles from the previous E3? Terrible.
As for DRM: Jesus - what a internet fuelled frenzy based on virtually nothing. Sure some like to own discs. Fine. But MS already said you could trade them, gift them, have a family sharing option. And yeah Steam, Origin and all the rest exist and noone cares.
And always online? (Well once in the last 24 hours). And? Every online game requires it anyway. All PC MMO's. Every mobile phone is online to work. And so what?
What a bunch of hot air for nothing. Unless of course you live on a nuclear submarine...... Right.....in which case you probably shouldn't be on-line in case you accidentally give out military secrets whilst trash talking in a COD match. Trust me, its for the national good.
Still I hope MS drop the price, or else they're going to get stung in sales compared to Sony. They dont have the luxury of being the only boys releasing their new console this year anymore.
Let the battle commence. Real gamers know its stupid to take sides in game wars. But that never stopped anyone. I'll be getting both anyway.
