During E3 our heads have been hammered with information about the importance of the online potential of each console system, we have also heard of the various features and extras each manufacturer will provide. One peek behind the hype though and it's plain to see that what all this does is throw smoke in our eyes. Three major console players and they will all offer almost identical content. That is why each one is trying to win us over with the various extras they will offer. Why choose one over the other when all will carry similar, identical even titles?
XBox Exclusives
Microsoft have been the most aggressive at pursuing exclusive deals with publishers. But in order to succeed with such a policy you have to have the numbers to support it. XBox sales have not lived up to expectations and some deals are already falling through. Malice, a game by Vivendi Universal Publishing, which Microsoft had announced as an XBox exclusive, will also become available on the PS2. Luc Vanhal, president of Vivendi Universal Publishing said that marketing assistance and even subsidized development costs only went so far Microsoft is much more aggressive going after exclusive deals, they realize they really need to give an incentive to publishers to focus on the Xbox. But it still comes down to economics, it costs quite a bit of money to develop a game. I need to recoup that money, and it's easier to do that when you're selling to a market of 30 million(PS2).
A similar disappointment for Microsoft came from Infogrames who announced plans to publish a PS2 version of The Matrix, another game thought to be an XBox exclusive. This particular loss was even more severe for Microsoft since they had invested US$1 Million in Shiny Entertainment in order to support the development of the game. I believe the marketing mistake has been in letting people believe the Xbox is the same product as the other consoles, said Bruno Bonnell, president of Infogrames. Xbox has a lot of features nobody's really taken advantage of yet, if someone built a game that fully utilizes the hard drive, the voice capability, people would see there's a real difference. The best evidence is the price: Microsoft knew they couldn't get people to pay extra for better technology, because they don't have a case yet for how that improves the games.
Microsoft however, claim to have made steps in that direction. Don Coyner, Microsoft's director of marketing for Xbox claims that Microsoft's own Blinx will change all that. Blinx is a jump-and-run game with the unique feature of allowing players to record and replay parts of the game. Console developers are not used to working with a hard drive. It takes awhile for a developer to think about what it can do, and it takes someone who sees the potential to take advantage of it and really push gaming concepts forward. said Coyner.
As can be expected the strongest criticizm of Microsoft's strategies came from their two main rivals. Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, who insisted all through E3 that Sony have already won the Console Wars said There's a significant investment to having multiple retail packages, at some point you have to say, Time out - Does it make sense for me to do a PlayStation exclusive? How much value do I get from doing other versions?
Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing and corporate affairs for Nintendo of America said We're worried about Microsoft, they've spent all this money building an online network, and they've lost focus on the games. Microsoft is doing technology, versus investing in content, and content drives this business.
