Microsoft: "We're Going to Try to Win That Core Gamer"

[DrDoomz]

Which is what frustrates me about the whole M$ marketing campaign. It's literally like either their Xbox marketing arm is run by a bunch of apes or that the higher ups have no marketing knowledge (or are too arrogant to care) at all.

First off, the E3 launch is where the innovator/early adaptors are known to flock and watch. Your die hard fans, your hardcore gamers, your gaming/electronic enthusiasts. The 20% whose opinions can decide the fate of your entire brand (due to the enormous influence they have on the purchasing decision making process of those within their networks). Who are fickle and have long ass memories. It is possibly the WORST place and time to start trying to disseminate policies which has even the slightest chance of being seen as negative. And dropping a cluster bomb of policies which had a high chance of being seen as negative, like they did left me nearly speechless. The fact that it was right before their biggest competitor, which was hungry after the immense marketshare loss it experienced last gen, was going to unveil theirs made it just the worst possible idea ever.

I mean, change management 101 would tell them that gradual introduction of negative policies which you can sugar coat or trojan horse with positive policies make it far easier to get these policies accepted. Drop a frog in a pot of boiling water and it jumps out, let it stay in a pot of water and slowly boil it, then it won't even notice that it's cooked.

The always-on mandatory Kinect should have been their first and only policy announcement in E3 2013. As opinions would be split between their market about the benefits/negatives about this idea (innovation vs privacy) a few months of spin on the benefits of the Kinect feature would have acceptance of the concept a lot easier for their market.

The always-on internet connection would then be slowly assimilated in the guise of "improvements" to the gaming experience. Things like the cloud would be slowly implemented on multiplayer then, when acceptance of the idea is a lot better, later on implemented on single player. Eventually, offline would be almost nonextistent snd resistance would never have even gained ground.

Last would be the DRM implementation. As downloaded games are already account-locked, DRM is already an acceptable fact among those that chose to go discless. The family sharing idea would have opened up more of the more skeptical market to going primarily discless. And using steam-like online sales to attract more of the market to going discless would have been the best way to slowly expland this market base and gradually releasing killer niche indie or A and below apps (not AAA and AA, tho) exclusives that are availabe only via download would have slowly phased out the disc-based medium over the span of several years. Slow integration thru incentivation.

Have they been smart and patient about their plans, things would have gone much smoother and they wouldn't have the enormous problems they are experiencing in the first place.