[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29911771#p29911771:3l31a6p1 said:
cateye[/url]":3l31a6p1]The unfortunate thing about how the marketplace reacted to the initial XB1 announcement is how, in retrospect and with hindsight, some of the features Microsoft wanted to introduce would actually have been pretty damn convenient, and an interesting break from how consoles have traditionally worked (especially in regard to handling of physical media).
But the reality is there is almost no more change-averse group than gamers, and people completely lost their minds. In a sense, Microsoft should've been smart enough to realize this: Their market didn't want different, even if different was "better" by some metric.
But, as an XB1 owner, I appreciate that they didn't just throw in the towel and have continued to find ways to innovate and improve the console, while making sure its core gaming functions remain predictable and stable. So I suppose that's the best case scenario.
I'm sure the angst had nothing to do with the announcements largely being about the downsides (no more used games - LULZ) while having virtually no positives in the mix, instead of just coming forward with everything as planned. Combine that with the acerbic statements by a certain prior Xbox guy who is soon to be ousted from Zynga (or is he already gone?) basically telling people with limited or no Internet connection that they should just stick with a 360, and screw them losers. And you get where people said, no - screw you Microsoft.
People weren't any more pleased with Sony for the PS3 launch. With bombast like, people will get another job to pay for our product! Really? Seem to recall a lot of PS3's not selling at launch, and the PS3 being a huge money-sink for Sony even after it slightly surpassed the 360 in overall worldwide sales towards the very end of its life. In the North American territories the 360 still leads the PS3 by a gargantuan margin.
So, Spencer has at least one thing correct. The initial perception of a product is hard to shake, and can end up determining final sales regardless of any changes made to initial consumer concerns after the fact.
But Spencer thinks that trust is coming back, in part thanks to new features like Xbox One's backwards-compatibility with the Xbox 360.
I think support for 360 hardware is also a concern. How many racing enthusiasts are pissed at the prospect of having to sump another several hundred bucks on racing wheels due to an internal Microsoft decision about input protocols and licensing? Instead of charging for some hardware compatibility device, Microsoft could generate a lot of goodwill among a large subset of gamers by offering a software update (call it 360 hardware mode) that allows their old and expensive hardware like steering wheels, fight sticks, and flight sticks to work as they did with the 360.
