Microsofts E3 PR FUBAR: How To Lose Fans and Alienate The Audience

“Fortunately we have a product for people that aren’t able to get some form of connectivety, that project is called ‘Xbox 360’”. That’s Microsoft’s answer to the fans questioning their choice of making Xbox One a system that requires an internet connection, a secretly all digital console that plainly won’t run games if it’s not connected to the internet, allowed to phone home at least once a day. 

The one vibe that ran through everything Microsoft did this E3 was one that seemed eerily close to the scandal clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch saw themselves faced with earlier this year. A&F’s CEO famously stated in an 2006 interview “Are we exclusionary? Absolutely!” when questioned about their practice of not producing clothes for oversized people. The underlying mindset informing Microsoft’s decisions with Xbox One come from a similar vein apparently.

Can’t borrow a game from a friend? Well why not just buy it instead? Can’t afford that? Too bad! We don’t need you as a customer then. That’s the message Microsoft is sending, intentional or not.

Can’t borrow a game from a friend? Well why not just buy it instead? Can’t afford that? Too bad! We don’t need you as a customer then. That’s the message Microsoft is sending, intentional or not. And if it’s not Microsoft’s spokespeople themselves, their fans quickly jump into the fray, defending the indefensible. The way Microsoft are positioning the Xbox One as an exclusive home media entertainment center is telling of their new found but deeply rooted obnoxious attitude. 

It has to be asked, who are Microsoft even marketing to? Who do they see as their target audience? Judging from the E3 performances, they appear just as disconnected from the reality of their consumer base as Sony was in 2006 when they announced the Playstation 3 as an exclusive, luxury product people should willingly work overtime for. True, Sony has recovered quite gracefully since, but initially they paid a high price for that complete miscalculation in attitude, pricing and target audience. Microsoft apparently wasn’t paying attention.

I wonder if the Xbox One can do the same thing here. First off, just like the Playstation 3 at launch, the console is too highly priced. Yes, it does cost about as much as an iPad, but that might just be a part of the problem. An iPad is something that offers much more than a home entertainment center. It is a constant companion, something the user takes along everywhere. Also, an iPad is a productive device. Maybe not quite as much as a real laptop. But still. Whereas the Xbox One is $500 spent on one thing, and one thing alone. Entertainment. 

And while the price point will likely go down over time, there are features of the Xbox One that in all likelihood won’t change. There is the mandatory call home every 24 hours. There is the necessity of registering games with your Xbox Live! account, and the whole too-complex-to-properly-explain system of trading in used games, or even borrowing games from friends. And then there’s the orwellian nightmare of the compulsory Kinect camera without which the Xbox One won’t work. And the current addition to the ToS. Just take a look, do an alt+f fulltext search for “you should not”, and have a good laugh. 

All these things are not present on the competing consoles. So whereas Sony were able to paint themselves out of their corner again after the $599 debacle, I don’t see an easy way out of this for Microsoft. Their new console is marred by an intrinsic dismissal of consumer rights, a hair raising dismissal of user privacy and an overall icky sense of misplaced supremacy when it comes to their PR.. Yes, Sony are indeed running rings around them, in what can only be described as burning humiliation. But Microsoft presents a really easy target here. 

Looking back at this past generation, it is hard to figure out where this new (old) evil Microsoft is coming from. The Xbox 360 was a console that tried its best catering to as big a crowd as possible. It had several, differently priced SKUs at launch, and with Xbox Live Arcade the platform made a huge effort to embrace indie games. An internet connection was never a requirement. With Xbox One it seems Microsoft is following an approach of “how did our money end up in your wallets? We are entitled to it, so give it over!”. It is an attitude we know from other places, and from the Microsoft’s old self of the early 2000s. Given the company’s recent trouble on several fronts, this attitude sure won’t help winning them a lot of new friends or making them more money. 

Yes, they are a company that has the one big goal, to make money. But guess what, so are Sony and Nintendo. And they both didn’t deliver nearly as much outright disregard for their customer base as Microsoft did this time around. As it stands, there is very little reason for any gamer to embrace the new Xbox. In fact, any gamer who does at this point is doing gaming itself a disservice. We have no bread so we’re supposed to eat cake. Too bad we don’t even need to storm the Bastille to oust “King” Microsoft this time. That would have been one hell of a party.