| arcaneguyver said: Coming from a point of outsider ignorance - I 100% honest to God never understood what MS did to inspire their fanbase devotion, outside Gears / Halo & inventing cheevos - I can only assume any fix would cost a ton of money. |
Well, outside Halo, Gears and achievements, there are plenty of things you can see why people would like them if you give it a bit of thought. I wouldn't use the word "devotion", because "devotion" kinda has negative connotion whether it comes from the MS fanbase or the Sony/Nintendo one (talking about videogame consoles), but things that people would enjoy from MS and its consoles (circa end of the life of OG Xbox and the Xbox 360 being born, can't talk about the current situation) was the push forward and popularization of working and stable online ecosystems, the initial embrace of indie developers and games in both the Arcade and Indie stores, the popularization (alongside Sony) of HD consoles, being a cheaper and seemingly fine alternative to the ultra expensive PS3, and the strong marketing, deals and arrangements that brought games and more games in what seemed like a non-stop current of it.
Achievements were an extention of said ecosystem created, whereas Halo and Gears, particulary the former, was the push for indentifying the brand with a popular game icon, not unlike Nintendo and Mario; which definitively worked if you see the sales of the original Halo trilogy. You take all these things in consideration and it doesn't seem crazy at all that such company would manage to create a huge fanbase, with, sure, its ultra-devoted section of it.
