Revisiting the Xbox One Reveal

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Andy

Andy

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Not that this matters much, I just found it interesting to hear from Ed Fries.

"The man who fought Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) first “console war” says it looks like his former company lost the most recent battle to arch rival Sony."

"Ed Fries, who led the team that created the first Xbox in 2001, said things seem to be slowing down in this installment of the high-stakes sales battle between the Xbox and PlayStation franchises."

"And the winner is: “I think it’s PS4 by a nose,” he said."

"Fries said things could change with the upcoming release of virtual and augmented reality devices. Microsoft and Sony have taken different approaches in that emerging space and so that wildcard could still shake things up."

"But the way things stand now, Fries said Microsoft doesn’t look like it will quite be able to close the gap after his former company bobbled the Xbox One launch in November 2013."

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...wins-the-console-war-by-a-nose.html?ana=yahoo
 
Andy said:
Not that this matters much, I just found it interesting to hear from Ed Fries.

"The man who fought Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) first “console war” says it looks like his former company lost the most recent battle to arch rival Sony."

"Ed Fries, who led the team that created the first Xbox in 2001, said things seem to be slowing down in this installment of the high-stakes sales battle between the Xbox and PlayStation franchises."

"And the winner is: “I think it’s PS4 by a nose,” he said."

"Fries said things could change with the upcoming release of virtual and augmented reality devices. Microsoft and Sony have taken different approaches in that emerging space and so that wildcard could still shake things up."

"But the way things stand now, Fries said Microsoft doesn’t look like it will quite be able to close the gap after his former company bobbled the Xbox One launch in November 2013."

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/...wins-the-console-war-by-a-nose.html?ana=yahoo
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Some real talk right there. He is right.
All Microsoft had to do was follow the same formula as the X360 and this gen would have been ALOT better for them sales wise. Not that it is horrible for them now, but it could have been MUCH better from the start.
Still SMH at the original Xbox One reveal.
 
The original reveal and the shadow it cast hurt MS immensely in the race to sell the most consoles as compared to their nearest rival. But the X1 is still selling well. Granted not as well as the PS4 but to my knowledge its still making them money and still making them competitive with Sony.
I still think that when the console makers compete like this we all win. I wish the Wii U was doing numbers like the X1 and PS4.
 
The Living Tribunal said:
Some real talk right there. He is right.
All Microsoft had to do was follow the same formula as the X360 and this gen would have been ALOT better for them sales wise. Not that it is horrible for them now, but it could have been MUCH better from the start.
Still SMH at the original Xbox One reveal.
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I still think they finalized their console plans during the first 6 months of the kinect launch on the 360 and they thought it was going to continue to do well. I don't think they had any idea that sales would drop off so much for the peripheral or how much people would start to actually dislike it. Either way packing it in didn't do anything to help, it caused the console to cost far too much and it still wasn't supported by devs in a way that would make it stand out as something people needed.

I think Sony was smart to yank the camera from their console (if they really were planning on packing it in) because that meant there was no reason to push camera features. If both consoles had cameras included in the box then devs may have decided they needed to at least add some extra features that both cameras were able to support but when it ended up that only one console was going to have one packed in it likely made it harder to justify putting resources into developing features for it.
 
The Living Tribunal said:
Some real talk right there. He is right.
All Microsoft had to do was follow the same formula as the X360 and this gen would have been ALOT better for them sales wise. Not that it is horrible for them now, but it could have been MUCH better from the start.
Still SMH at the original Xbox One reveal.
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High ranked executive busts into Xbox Division meeting
"Two words you bitches! Water, Cooler!"
he then turns around and walks out the meeting while yelling
"TV, TV, TV, TV, TV!!"

And that children is how Xbox One was born.
 
The Living Tribunal said:
Some real talk right there. He is right.
All Microsoft had to do was follow the same formula as the X360 and this gen would have been ALOT better for them sales wise. Not that it is horrible for them now, but it could have been MUCH better from the start.
Still SMH at the original Xbox One reveal.
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Definitely. But Sony had a lot of momentum going into this gen. I think it may have still outsold X1 2:1 or close to it.
 
That xb1 reveal was one of the worst in history, if not the worst. You come to a reveal of a game console and talk about TV. Still smh as well. It's like they had an entire team devoted to the goal of f***ing themselves.
 
de3d1 said:
That xb1 reveal was one of the worst in history, if not the worst. You come to a reveal of a game console and talk about TV. Still smh as well. It's like they had an entire team devoted to the goal of f***ing themselves.
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I honestly still think the Xbox 360 MTV reveal was worse. I loved the very first album from the Killers (Hot Fuss) but two music performances from them + a celebrity video game battle + a six minute segment about faceplates (remember those?) + a ton of ads. The Xbox One reveal had more gaming content than the Xbox 360 reveal though that's not to say it wasn't bad. It was -- it's simply amazing how MS thought that starting off an Xbox Conference showing a live TV feed of The Price Is Right would be a good idea.

I like the TV features of the Xbox One and love how you can jump right into a video game's lobby when getting a notification while watching a TV show as well as stream TV to smartglass (Hauppauge PVR) but you don't reveal a video game console that way (lol).
 
Dno69 said:
Definitely. But Sony had a lot of momentum going into this gen. I think it may have still outsold X1 2:1 or close to it.
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The only thing that would more than likely be different if the XB1 had better PR before launch is its position in America and the U.K..

The PS4 would still be number one worldwide more than likely. Seems like a lot of people don't realize that the PS3 outsold the 360 worldwide regularly but the 360 took last gen (larger userbase) due to its head start. Due to this, I personally feel it was inevitable for the PS4 to take the gen since both the PS4 and Xbox One released in the same year.
 
Troublegum said:
If you really want to talk about reveal disasters, Wii U is still the current champion (loser?)
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Agreed. Hell many didn't know if it was a new console or just a tablet for the Wii.

And even at a 2nd E3 Nintendo failed to sell the damn thing before its launch.
 
Troublegum said:
If you really want to talk about reveal disasters, Wii U is still the current champion (loser?)
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It's a bad thing when people who cover video gaming/tech don't know whether it's a Wii add on, a new Nintendo portable system, or a completely new Nintendo (home) system.
 
Bgamer90 said:
It's a bad thing when people who cover video gaming/tech don't know whether it's a Wii add on, a new Nintendo portable system, or a completely new Nintendo (home) system.
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It got even worse when Nintendo's TV adverts had to explicitly state, 'HEY, THIS IS A BRAND NEW CONSOLE FROM NINTENDO BY THE WAY AND YES ALL YOUR FAVOURITE OLD Wii GAMES WILL WORK ON IT... CHRIST.'

Actually the Son of God may not have been mentioned but you get the gist.

Worst selling home console in Nintendo's history.
 
I'd agree on the Xbox reveal. The price was too high, and maybe they shouldn't have included Kinect (Not that I had a problem with either.) Although, For the life of me I cant figure out how people could never get their mind around the fact that X1 also played video games and would have plenty on tap. Truth be told, it was the natural evolution of gaming consoles. They literally had to turn into multimedia entertainment devices, judging from last gen. To me at least, it was to be expected.
 
The TV stuff could have been covered in a 5 minute Youtube video.

No one turning in to watch the Xbox One announcement would have been looking to see the none gaming side of things.
 
You can see who they thought they were talking to, with the Price is Right clip and the constant mention of "TV" and "sports" -- they were addressing the masses. They thought the time was right for "taking over the living room." There was a complete disconnect from who they were really talking to -- the hardcore gaming audience and gaming press.

I'm still astonished at the level of disconnect. I thought Microsoft did all kinds of research, ran focus groups, etc., before putting out a big product announcement like that. That thing was designed by a marketing committee, in a bubble. It wasn't just the "TV/TV/TV/sports" thing; it was also the policies themselves (no used games, always online, mandatory Kinect, etc.). They didn't think to focus-test those ideas? Their fumbling attempts to speak to the media afterwards just made things worse.

Then there was a long period of reversals, untangling the mess -- from leadership to policies to peripherals. They've done a good job there, even though some of the changes were embarrassing. They've earned back a lot of trust. The initial reveal is still hurting them, though, and probably always will. As the old saying goes, "You only get one chance to make a first impression."
 
MS did do a lot of research, it's just that the research they did was based largely on the last years of the Xbox 360 and the way that people were using the console at the time instead of the first years of the system; Somewhat understandable considering the fact that the Xbox 360 did MUCH better after 2008 (up to late 2012 or so) than it did before that period.

Either way, they should have known that people who buy consoles shortly after they launch are the "hardcoriest" of the hardcore gamers.
 
The "TV TV TV" stuff was bad but the price and DRM fiasco was much worse for them.
 
Bgamer90 said:
MS did do a lot of research, it's just that the research they did was based largely on the last years of the Xbox 360 and the way that people were using the console at the time instead of the first years of the system; Somewhat understandable considering the fact that the Xbox 360 did MUCH better after 2008 (up to late 2012 or so) than it did before that period.

Either way, they should have known that people who buy consoles shortly after they launch are the "hardcoriest" of the hardcore gamers.
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Well, they did say that they would be talking about games at E3 during the reveal which told me that the games were coming. So from there, if you were expecting to see games during that time, you weren't listening. Alas, I guess the majority of the world wasnt doing that, so there was a breakdown somewhere.
Again, I can see why Microsoft went the way they did. It came from lessons learned from past gen and paying close attention to what people were doing with their 360's.
 
Mcmasters said:
Well, they did say that they would be talking about games at E3 during the reveal which told me that the games were coming. So from there, if you were expecting to see games during that time, you weren't listening. Alas, I guess the majority of the world wasnt doing that, so there was a breakdown somewhere.
Again, I can see why Microsoft went the way they did. It came from lessons learned from past gen and paying close attention to what people were doing with their 360's.
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I think having those features makes sense. That just wasn't the right place to focus on it.
 
It's amazing how quickly they moved on price though, it is now cheaper than the PS4 in the US and UK.

Amazon UK has the Xbox One with Halo MCC for £270, the PS4 standalone is £314.

The Xbox 360 is outselling the Xbox One on Amazon, but not the PS4, due to a price drop of the 500GB FIFA 15 bundle to £140 (£10 more than the 4GB model with Peggle 2)
 
Nash as I said if that stuff had been kept to videos on Tube and what not people wouldn't have cared so much.

You don't reveal a GAMES console and talk about TV and Sports for over 30 minutes.
 
Mcmasters said:
Honestly, no matter where Microsoft revealed the television features I think the response wouldve been the same. To me at least....
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Thats a good reason not to focus your reveal of your console on features your obviously hardcore gaming audience won't care about. Its not like they didn't heavily promote the reveal and even put it on TV. Casual gamers weren't going to be the ones watching. It just made no sense.
 
yankeessuck said:
Thats a good reason not to focus your reveal of your console on features your obviously hardcore gaming audience won't care about. Its not like they didn't heavily promote the reveal and even put it on TV. Casual gamers weren't going to be the ones watching. It just made no sense.
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That depends on who you ask. To me, it was their exclusive event. They bank rolled it. They can show what ever the hell they wanted. The plus side was at least it was a finished product. What they showed actually worked.

The price though....I imagine to most it was border line insane. Not to me, but to some. Attaching games to gamer tags, and always online were negative bullet points for sure. Even that was a double edged sword. Ive not taken my X1 offline yet. But I can understand those who didnt have dependable internet or wanted to take their consoles with them on the road. But for sure, it seemed like Microsoft had to come to the point where they wanted to finally reveal their all in one device and thought to them selves they'd take the world with them regardless if they wanted to join or not. The "join or not" is where they got into trouble. Some were willing to go, most.....not so much.
 
Mcmasters said:
Well, they did say that they would be talking about games at E3 during the reveal which told me that the games were coming. So from there, if you were expecting to see games during that time, you weren't listening. Alas, I guess the majority of the world wasnt doing that, so there was a breakdown somewhere.
Again, I can see why Microsoft went the way they did. It came from lessons learned from past gen and paying close attention to what people were doing with their 360's.
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I would say it was more lessons misunderstood from the previous gen than lessons learned. The lessoned learned came after the backlash.
 
Mcmasters said:
That depends on who you ask. To me, it was their exclusive event. They bank rolled it. They can show what ever the hell they wanted. The plus side was at least it was a finished product. What they showed actually worked.

The price though....I imagine to most it was border line insane. Not to me, but to some. Attaching games to gamer tags, and always online were negative bullet points for sure. Even that was a double edged sword. Ive not taken my X1 offline yet. But I can understand those who didnt have dependable internet or wanted to take their consoles with them on the road. But for sure, it seemed like Microsoft had to come to the point where they wanted to finally reveal their all in one device and thought to them selves they'd take the world with them regardless if they wanted to join or not. The "join or not" is where they got into trouble. Some were willing to go, most.....not so much.
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Well we know they can show what they want. We are talking about whether it was a good idea.

The backlash was always obvious. The backlash was there when it was just rumored. To make it work they needed some plan to weather the storm or just a great feature to show that makes it worth the sacrifice. They just came off as unprepared for the bad PR.
 
yankeessuck said:
Well we know they can show what they want. We are talking about whether it was a good idea.

The backlash was always obvious. The backlash was there when it was just rumored. To make it work they needed some plan to weather the storm or just a great feature to show that makes it worth the sacrifice. They just came off as unprepared for the bad PR.
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There was no way they could prepare for that kind of push back. No way. Their just learning to keep their mouths shut now.
 
Leaks had been coming out for about a year about always online/Kinect/No used games so they should have seen the backlash those reports got.
 
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