Reminds me back when there was the Pizza Hut app on 360 that let you order pizza lol. They’ve done marketing with Pizza Hut and Dominoes since then though.
The only reason Xbox fans I feel have been buying a Series S is either to use it for Emu’s or because they can’t get a Series X, but really despite the much higher price, far more have bought a PS5 for the gaming masses, the cheap price hasn’t made people go to the Series S , so the cheap price tag has really failed and we all can see it in the sales charts with the PS5 storming ahead despite being double the price and usually far harder to get a hold of.
You need to make your product desirable and for people to believe they must have it, then it doesn’t matter about price, people will find a way to pay for it (just ask Apple ) You can do that with games and clever PR, sometimes you don’t even need the games at the start as the PS2 showed (and to a point the 360) but SONY had the PR and hype and so did the 360, but Peter Moore was the man, who did such a great job at SEGA before he joined MS and push Xbox PR to the next level
XBox PR has been a disaster this gen and I see again on DF weekly podcast, they’re having a pop at Xbox… Xbox and its PR are such an easy target and such an open goal at the moment.
I don’t think you need to be a PR manager on a 6 figure salary, to work out that having Redfall launch with only a 30 FPS mode on the most powerful console was a massive own goal and that’s coming off the back of endless delays and so many staff leaving 343 Ect
MS need to get a grip and sort it out. I hope it will come at the June showcase and then they’ll go into overdrive with Starfield with Xbox stock and PR
I think there is a massive misuse of the term ‘PR’. PR don’t built games or set technical parameters. Redfall being 30FPS is a dev team thing not a PR thing. Marketing etc can only message they can’t change what has been made.
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They need better communication, but Xbox PR is hopeless anyway; It almost reminds of the SEGA America days of Saturn or SEGA Europe at the time of the DC. So many mistakes and so many open goals, all SONY had to do was sit back and laugh
It’s been a terrible PR exercise since that very Xbox Games Showcase Games Announce Trailer 2020 with MS/XBox constantly on the back foot and butt end of SONY fanboy jokes and then it’s not helped with Xbox studio management’s endless delays 343 the butt of all jokes…
Who allowed Ghost Wire to be passed fit on Xbox, who thought it be ok to release Redfall at 30 FPS on the Series X It’s blatantly obvious it was going to be used against the Xbox. Never mind releasing the news of 30 FPS mere weeks before the game is shipping when you’re trying to build up hype and goodwill for a game.
Never give your rivals cheap easy shots, much less their fans an easy win on the school playground.
I’m going to hope it’s the Activision deal which has put everything on hold because the Xbox Series X went from being super hyped & supported in its first couple of years to now feeling like… an afterthought?
I hope that’s not a biproduct of the sales cratering because in its first 24 months it had the FPS Boost program, patches for big titles to have ray tracing, higher fps etc. & even though there weren’t any real exclusive games on the platform (the PS5 is hardly much different in that regard) it still seemed like it was the number one focus of the Xbox team.
I only mention this because I was an owner of the One X (which is in a cupboard now), so I sort of have experience with an Xbox product which went from hype to forgotten in 3 years. Later titles releasing on the One X started to suffer from serious performance problems (& something like Halo Anniversary is downright unplayable on the One X).
It would be a b*tch world to live in if Xbox now sees PC as a bigger market to push Game Pass on.
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[quote=“Anecronomicon, post:691, topic:13555”] I’m going to hope it’s the Activision deal which has put everything on hold [/quote]
I think that’s a good point and hopefully MS will go guns blazing when the deal is done. That still doesn’t excuse Redfall running at 30 FPS
The Series X launched 3 years after the One X launched, so it’s not surprising the level of support changed.
Also, games running like shit at the end of last gen wasn’t just a One X thing. It happened on everything (stuff like Control and Jedi).
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I also hope that it’s ABK holding everything back. I really do.
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Those “CoD Everywhere” ads they rolled out honestly show me that they -do- know how to market and have chosen not to. Choosing to not market for this long did some damaging effects so I’m with you on that I hope it was ABK holding everything back as well.
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Xbox does marketing depending on the product, you can’t put something like Hi-Fi RUSH, RedFall or FM at Madison Square Garden or Super bowl because it’s not the right marketing for those games. You will see how Starfield will have advertisements everywhere.
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That’s good to see, but I hope MS doesn’t let it keep happening on other XGS games.
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The Series S isn’t just about the cheap price though…
The Series S was also designed up front with Cloud in mind. As was the Series X. Part of the reason the Series S is quite literally 1/3rd the power of the Series X is so that a single Series X in the Cloud can power 3 users. All they need to do is add the extra ram and it works.
So its easy to point at the Series S in retail and assume that it has failed at its goal, but that only holds true if you ignore its real value prop. There is a reason PSN+ doesn’t have PS5 versions of games in the Cloud. It would be way too insanely expensive to build that out and stream, but for Microsoft they have 1/3 or less cost of operation while being able to deliver next-gen experiences thanks to the Series S.
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The trouble with that is most phones have screens way above1440P and that’s probably why MS is replaced the blades with the Series X because not even people on the move want to play in that res
Meanwhile Circana Feb sales don’t make good reading for us XBox fans
Who gives a shit about ps5 users? Thsts a very small market. They need more mobile nintendo and pc users.
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So MS is now all about Mobile and PC gaming? I don’t know why they bothered with the Series S or X when people like you know best and the console market is a very small market…
You do realize that the Series X blades are powering 3 Series S experiences each?
Also, on tiny mobile screens, no one is really a ring about games running at 1080p. They didn’t care when it was 720p running on One S systems and adopted XCLOUD at far higher rates than competition at 4k.
Come on now, let’s be civil here. No need to take him out of context and imply he is saying things he clearly didn’t say.
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4 actually.
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Fair enough and sorry . There is no need to try pretend that the console market isnt huge and if the Series X was selling as well as tbe PS5, not many here woukd be bringing up X Cloud or PC.
Just look at one of the best selling games this year RE 4 remake . Near to 5 million sales , none of which from X Cloud , the PC sales are 3rd place, not much better for Xbox and over 60% sales on SONY systems . Thats is millions in royalties going to SONY from each sale
MS need to sort this out and can not afford to leave it untill September, before they might actually come out and start to push the Series consoles.
I really think Phil needs to have a top level meeting with Xbox top brass and look to come with answers for better PR and maybe even look to bring in short term crunch, to make sure games like Hellblade 2, Forza, Avowed make it out this year .
Please not silky comments that I support slave labour peolple.