Microsoft targets the children
By Luke McKinney
Microsoft are seeking to crack into the lucrative family market with the XBox 360 Arcade, a new model of XBox that went on sale earlier this week. Bundled with simple, family friendly games like Pacman and Uno, the device hopes to earn some of the market share currently dominated by the Wii.
This news is discussed in a positively gushing article over at CNET, whose author is clearly either married to or being held hostage by a giant XBox. We should probably send some help. Widespread reaction to the console was somewhat less positive, with most reviewers recognizing the XBox 360 Arcade as basically a Core model (known to gamers as "the goddamn useless core model") without even the vestigial hard drive that hardware had. Downloadable child-friendly games are promised, as well as Looney Tunes episodes thanks to a deal signed with Warner entertainment.
Competition in any market can only be a good thing, and the strategies employed to garner the casual and non-traditional gaming markets reveal a lot about the companies. Nintendo often innovates, and quite often fails (Virtual Boy, Gamecube) but tends to make a lot of money when it works (GameBoy, Wii). On the downside they have to rely on their own games for the dangerous launch phase of the console while other developers get a handle on the hardware (or decide if they want to bother at all).
Microsoft, once realizing there is a market to be had, goes out and buys what it needs to compete (Bungie). And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Haters tend to to talk of Microsoft as if making money was some kind of evil ulterior motive for getting involved in the games industry, as opposed to the point of making something worth selling.
What is wrong is the old crime of thinking of casual gamers as less important, or even less deserving, than your hardcore fans. Releasing a stripped down version of a hardware model that has been critically derided since it’s first day is no way to make friends or influence people. The Wii may be less powerful, but that’s because it’s got an input mechanism and simple enjoyment that people love. It isn’t a license to release gutted hardware in the hopes that "those stupid people don’t care".
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October 26th, 2007
Microsoft has kept on saying it would try to target children (I have my sources), but didn’t start doing so until now. It’s my opinion that they may not be taking things seriously even now, even with this new counsle–somehow, it just doesn’t seem to have the push that children would enjoy.
In addition, if there is no interaction (like a motion sensing controller), I don’t think that this idea will get much anywhere. After all, Uno, Pac-Man, etc., these games you can get for FREE OR CHEAP on your computer if you know where to look. And you can do nothing more with a standard gamepad than you can do with a keyboard. But an Xbox 360 unit with a control that you just twiddle your thumbs on? Too expensive–and like I said before, it just doesn’t seem to have a push on some people.