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Jesse Schell: Listening to customers was Microsoft's big mistake
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
They could have maybe sold people on it if it had been a pure digital console. People would have gone "oh, like my iPad! okay"
But they actively reminded people they were losing features of the previous generation console and telling them they needed a 24 hour check in for features the previous console did offline (installing games). It was like they wanted to be a retail console and a digital console at the same time while playing to the strengths of neither. Reducing it from always on to 24-hour check in made it so developers couldn't even design a game around being connected, for example.
Its not. Steam can be downloaded for free.Xbone must be purchased. They weren't close to being the same service. Microsoft tryed to enforce pos drm garbage on us that no one wants. Kinect being forced is ok minus the stupid price they're asking. Microsoft is dumb and so is this article.
Interfectum
Member
It was a poorly thought out plan no doubt. Instead of going all-in for digital distribution like they should have they decided to straddle the fence with a confusing, convoluted setup that got them ripped to shreds in the mainstream press. They tried to have it both ways and everyone rejected it. Whoever thought the 24 hour check-in would be accepted by anyone probably doesn't have a job at MS anymore. What a disaster.
Call of Duty on the PC is a bit of a fickle beast. The player counts are relatively high initially, but they drop off after a few months as people move back to their preferred CoD entry, Battlefield or Valve's evergreen titles -- the series distinctly lacks the staying power it has on the console side.
Funny. If Microsoft would've kept going with the original plan, the fine Mr Schell may have said it was a mistake for Microsoft that they didn't listen to the interests of the customers. Point is, they are wrong whichever way they turn. That pretty much applies to every company.
I despise the original strategy personally and won't buy an Xbone until they also drop the Kinect requirement, just for the sake of an interesting console war I would've liked to see them go down their original path though. It's not fun if they're so, so equal. Who knows, maybe in the long term Microsofts strategy would'nt have turned out so bad as we all imagined it in the heat of the argument? Financially, Microsoft is definitely in a better position than Sony to risk an experiment like this.
I despise the original strategy personally and won't buy an Xbone until they also drop the Kinect requirement, just for the sake of an interesting console war I would've liked to see them go down their original path though. It's not fun if they're so, so equal. Who knows, maybe in the long term Microsofts strategy would'nt have turned out so bad as we all imagined it in the heat of the argument? Financially, Microsoft is definitely in a better position than Sony to risk an experiment like this.
diffusionx
Gold Member
First of all, Steam owns like 70% of the market. So they have a dominant position in the marketplace. They can do what they want.
So I don't think the dynamic is Steam competing with GamersGate. It's publishers competing with publishers. Bioshock Infinite was $24.99 during the Steam sale because internet in the game died out at $50 and Take Two wants to reach those customers who didn't think it was worth that price. That's normally what happens and that dynamic pushes down prices. It's not because Valve told Take Two to sell it for $25 because they need to outfox GamersGate. That dynamic would also not have escaped a digital-focused Xbox One.
Look at the App Store. The average price of a game is like 50 cents or something. A few years ago it was more like $6. App Store isn't competing with anything - it's the only way to get games on iPad. The competition comes from the people releasing the content.
Same thing would happen on any platform that is primarily digital sales.
Not to mention that computers are open, and there are tons of stores like Steam. Valve are actually much more pro consumer, or better about it, than Microsoft, but even Steam would be completely different if it was the only digital store on the PC. Steam has some competition - there is GoG.com, GreenManGaming, Gamersgate, Origin, and so forth.
There is absolutely no reason to think that a platform with one store, run by one company, would be anything like Steam, due to the lack of competition or alternatives. Why do people keep bringing this up? It makes no sense. Every single industry, product, etc, that has no competition demands relatively outrageous prices -- because it has no competition. It is logical to assume that would be more or less the case on consoles as well, especially considering how greedy the retail aspect of the gaming industry already is.
The prices would, most likely, stay more less the same for the first 6 months or so, but then they would start increasing them. I wouldn't be surprised if they drove them up to 80-100$ in the first 2 years.
Stores drive down the prices because they compete with each other; they buy stock from the publishers and sell it, and the bigger the stock the cheaper the individual units cost, and since every store wants to be the one to sell it to the consumers, they try to keep the prices as low as possible while still earning a bit. Then another store lowers it even more, and force the other stores to follow suit, and buy even more stock from the publishers to get a cheaper per unit price. With digital, there would be no stock or cheaper per unit price, since they would be selling digital items directly to the consumer. There would be no competition - the platform holder wants to earn as much money as possible, and so do the the publishers who offers the games.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
If the Xbone wouldn't have been awful the way it was planned I'll eat my hat.
CambriaRising
Member
It's hard to know the real benefits of Steam when you have a press account.
PdotMichael
Banned
How was Xbox's original system superior to Sony and Nintendo? Don't Sony and Nintendo have all the good things of Steam already?
Fair enough, my point was that MS wouldn't changed any of their original policies if they had put up better pre-order numbers and all the bitching and moaning on the internet would have been for naught.
War Raichu
Member
Every fuckwhistle who tries to make the Steam comparison should have their mouth and hands taped up
travisbickle
Member
"It's like Steam"
"Oh great, an online market place for games."
"no, no, just keep buying the discs trust us."
"Oh great, an online market place for games."
"no, no, just keep buying the discs trust us."
The Bookerman
Member
Guess Schell hasn't seen the pre-order numbers pre-180.
It also doesn't help that COD is far more expensive than the average pc shooter, even BF.
ElRenoRaven
Member
This is a key point too. Valve is a company like any other. They want your money. However with an open environment such as the PC marketplace is there will always be competition unless companies like MS succeed in limiting your ability to get apps anywhere other then their stores. That's the big difference too. On a console you have no competition. You have only the console maker's storefront in which to buy games. Sure you can buy some physical discs but even then you're still limited.
You would have been more too had MS got their way. Their way was totally trying to destroy any 2nd hand market there would have been. You'd have seen game prices stay a lot higher a lot longer because you'd then not have any competition from used games. That's the reason retail games come down as quick as they do. People have a choice between new and used and hence they have to compete with those used games. As a result prices lower quicker. It's good for us the consumer. MS wanted none of that and eventually they would have told these "select retail partners" to fuck off and left you with no ability to sell your games or buy used.
Bullshit. Their mistake was trying to jump several steps in gaining consumers trust and going ahead of the basic internet infrastructure rollout required to support their aggressive always-online plans.
If they didn't listen to their customers they wouldn't have an Xbox business this time next year. It absolutely would've been Wii U'd. They changed because they saw analytics they didn't like. Not just of "the vocal minority", but of everyone. Money talked in this case. It always does.
If they didn't listen to their customers they wouldn't have an Xbox business this time next year. It absolutely would've been Wii U'd. They changed because they saw analytics they didn't like. Not just of "the vocal minority", but of everyone. Money talked in this case. It always does.
BrokenEchelon
Banned
If only you had embraced your chains and shackles!
Claude Kenni
Member
I don't get why the comparison between Steam and the Xbox One is dominating the discussion, the article mentions it but not in the way many seem to think. Very little of the article really has to do with Steam.
Yes.
Obviously Steam is much better due to a bunch of extra features, but the core appeal of Steam has always been "buy once, play anywhere," which was the same way the original XBox One system worked. When you add in the obtrusive DRM and other features, of course it's much worse, but that doesn't stop it from being the same core idea.
Right. Its like they took a few things from the Steam model and not others without understanding that Steam is great as a whole, not piecemeal.
And as others said, they could have done it far better, even keeping the restrictions they had in place if they were able to articulate it well, including benefits to consumers.
ebullientprism
Member
Part of me wanted them to stick with the ridiculous ideas they came up with just to watch it all crash and burn around them. 
ElRenoRaven
Member
Exactly. You know I would have been 100 percent ok with the Xbox one had MS done these things.
1. Choice between the 24 hour check in's or not.
2. Choice between kinect or not.
That's all they had to do. If you want the sharing etc then you could have opted into that crap. If you didn't then you could have simply not been allowed to share your digital copies. It's not that damn hard to do.
Then the kinect could have been included but requiring it to be connected for the console to work is a no go for me and many others. We don't want it. We don't like it. Don't force something on us that we do not want.
digoutyoursoul
Member
And if they didnt listen to consumers and their product was not selling, who is to blame then? I'm tired of this narrow minded shit.
Not to be rude, but I like to imagine that Schell just got a copy of "The Innovator's Dilemma" for his birthday, plowed through it in a night and had an "epiphany" not dissimilar to that of a teenage boy reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the first time.
And this article, sadly, is the result.
And this article, sadly, is the result.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
Valve is not MS. They have no loyalty to retailers and can get away with the insanely low digital prices that would otherwise cannibalize retail copy sales.
Maneauleau
Member
And why o why did it have to be one thing or the other and not the best of both world?
Mystery???
Mystery???
Fox Mulder
Member
Innovating is great. MS talked to us like we're morons and defined their product with negatives. MS never once tried to explain what we would gain by all the restrictive bullshit.
I can agree with this. Straddling the fence hurt them bigger then the initial outcry of going all digital would have. I think it would have been interesting to see two different approaches to the market released and competing with each other. I still feel MS will get back to their vision slowly over this generation maybe even with a Xbox one revision without a disc drive.
I certainly see where this is coming from, but I'm not sure it was phrased correctly.
This is why Sony's PS4 reveal was so well liked by gamers but relatively disliked by economic analysts, for example. The PS4 is (or seems to be) great for traditional console gamers, but doesn't seem well positioned to capitalize on rapidly expanding, highly profitable market segments collectively known as "casual." As the Wii clearly shows, traditional console gamers are frequently resistant to if not outright hostile toward "casual" elements being integrated in to a system, so any attempt to appeal to this expanded base of consumers risks the ire of the established base.
The reason highly successful, highly profitable platforms like iOS and Android have expanded so rapidly is that they are unfettered by the demands that traditional gamers place on manufacturers like Sony and Microsoft. They are able to make exactly what expanded audiences want because there is no pressure on iOS developers to produce a PS1/PS2-like ecosystem.
This is why Sony's PS4 reveal was so well liked by gamers but relatively disliked by economic analysts, for example. The PS4 is (or seems to be) great for traditional console gamers, but doesn't seem well positioned to capitalize on rapidly expanding, highly profitable market segments collectively known as "casual." As the Wii clearly shows, traditional console gamers are frequently resistant to if not outright hostile toward "casual" elements being integrated in to a system, so any attempt to appeal to this expanded base of consumers risks the ire of the established base.
The reason highly successful, highly profitable platforms like iOS and Android have expanded so rapidly is that they are unfettered by the demands that traditional gamers place on manufacturers like Sony and Microsoft. They are able to make exactly what expanded audiences want because there is no pressure on iOS developers to produce a PS1/PS2-like ecosystem.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
An additional thing people overlook about Steam is that when Steam was introduced retail PC games were just as restrictive if not more restrictive than Steam was. So even though Steam was hated at the time, it wasn't taking away consumer rights that hadn't already been taken away. At least by my recollection...
Here MS was taking away current consumer rights.
Here MS was taking away current consumer rights.
Even with the shitty DRM no used games thing, I was considering buying an Xbox One even if only for the exclusives. If they released a digital only console I wouldn't even have considered buying it. Again, I like selling my $60 game once I'm done with it for a price I dictate.
I think making it a digital only device would have been even worse for them.
It doesn't even look like his company even makes games for consoles, so why is he spouting his mouth like he actually knows anything about that ecosystem? Even if you ignore the company he's in, the fact he's using the absolutely dreadful "it's like Steam" argument shows how out of touch he is with the true issues that existed with the DRM.
LapinAgile
Member
I have had Steam on four different computers. Every game I have bought in that tenure works now and many of them have seen upgrades, updates and performance enhancements with the new hardware I purchase. And I didn't have to pay for these updates or I had a choice to buy them at a deep discount. It is a digital library, not a mausoleum like my 360 will soon become... I realize that has to do with the architecture change, but I still am taking the "wait and see" approach when it comes to MS and the future they are envisioning.
Microsoft didn't make the change because of an outcry from "small section of the gaming audience." They made the change because their advance sales were disastrous in comparison to their primary competitor's.
A company like Microsoft doesn't give a shit about what people on gaming message boards say as long as it's good for their bottom line. The problem here was that they were already being put at a drastic sales disadvantage months before launch.
Microsoft didn't listen to their customers. They listened to the money.
A company like Microsoft doesn't give a shit about what people on gaming message boards say as long as it's good for their bottom line. The problem here was that they were already being put at a drastic sales disadvantage months before launch.
Microsoft didn't listen to their customers. They listened to the money.