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[madmaxx350]

To be fair he said on the podcast "E3 watching people".

Those E3 watching people are the ones that are going to carry them during the early years of the console, you don't want to get on their bad side, look at Nintendo and the Wii U's situation. They could have at least given a COD live demo but instead we get CODog. To me it felt that even with the whole "15 exclusives in the next 12 months" thing, they weren't ready for the gamers ...

Anyway, I think MS will be fine going forward, especially if they have good games to show. We gamers have short memory.

 

[Sydle]

A gaming forum is pissed because a gaming company announced a console with TV as their main focus and not games, then proceeds to practice anti-consumer acts on their customers.

Yeah where is the negativity coming from?

Say what now? Classifying Microsoft as a gaming company is just wrong. They're so much more than that and it's obvious they are betting on the new Xbox to be more than just gaming.

Easy for Microsoft to say this after the fact.

They said it before. They said it back in April.

 

[freddy]

I thought I'd read this somewhere before but I was mistaken.

Cliff Bleszinski ‏@therealcliffyb 18h
Something that many gamers don't understand is that this isn't a console war, this is a war for the future of ENTERTAINMENT.

Cliff Bleszinski ‏@therealcliffyb 18h
Sony and MS aren't just making a better console they're burying DVR devices. #XboxReveal

Cliff Bleszinski ‏@therealcliffyb 18h
If they showed all of the games today you'd all be at the E3 presser going "WHERE ARE THE GAMES?" (me too) #XboxOne

Cliff Bleszinski ‏@therealcliffyb 10h
My gut is telling me that today's show was "get the stuff out of the way that we didn't really want to hear about at E3" for Xbox One.

 

[Marcel]

As opposed to the anecdotal evidence in this thread showing that everyone hated it?

It's totally unreasonable that consumers dislike something anti-consumer. Totes unreasonable.

 

[The_Monk]

Honest answer? Yep.

Then I don't like all of this.

Even if they do an amazing job at E3 with lot's of games (and Kinect games too) people must remember what will they be buying once the console launch.

 

[Marleyman]

Yup.

What great marketing genius thought, "Hey guys! Lets unveil our brand new console only showing features and talking about aspects of it that no one gives a shit about!"

A marketing genius that has a marketing job. Have you ever worked in marketing?

And even when they showed games it was basically a very mediocre looking Call of Duty and SPORTSPORTSPORTS.

Gamers love COD and this looked like a better version of it. Sports sell; sports games sell, betting on sports sell and yes, SPORTS sell. You might not like it but oh well.

 

[badcrumble]

If their E3 presser is absolutely amazing, and Sony's isn't, Microsoft will look okay again.

However, their E3 presser is going to be full of Kinect games and third-party non-exclusives, plus the Halo/Fable/Forza first-party trinity and some XBLA games, same as every E3. It's not going to magically be vastly better than MS E3 press conferences of yore, because it's still the same company with the same industry relationships and the same first party studios. It'll be good at best, but I sincerely doubt it has a chance of being truly great.

 

[dragonflys545]

15 exclusives and we aren't showing you a single one here. That's a big FU to gamers!

 

[quest]

Come one people this is like Lucy holding the football for Charlie brown. MS promises E3 will be all about core games. Then E3 comes and it is about Kinect and everything else but core games. How many times do you all need to be fooled by MS the last few years? E3 will be about games sure but it will be Kinect 2.0 games. Also there will be a huge chunk on the TV junk. They invested a ton of money on it and it will be a huge part of E3 for them. 15 exclusives sound nice on paper till you find out 12 of them are Kinect 2.0 games lol.

 

[kitch9]

Obviously, the people overreacting need to relax.

Over reacting to what?

The most dumbass reveal of a console ever.

Here's our new games console, lets talk about how you can watch tv and skype your mom at the same time.

Games? Where we're going we don't need no games!

 

[140.85]

So you want the first impression of your console to be a bad one? This is so messed up. what the hell were they thinking?

Isn't it obvious that they were nowhere near ready to announce this thing? I mean, almost every major rumor about "One" has turned out more or less true - so it's glaringly obvious now that the "MS is 6 months behind in game development" rumor was just as accurate. It explains everything. The short presentation, the hurried look at a very narrow breadth of games, employees not having their messaging and facts all straight...

I think it's pretty clear they wanted to present this thing with a better balance between features and games but had no choice but to settle with whatever they had because they had to move up their timetable so much. Regardless of E3's proximity, everybody wants to make a good first impression.

Sorry defenders, but this event was not sold as some small prelude to a bigger, better reveal. It was sold to everyone and presented as the beginning of a new generation.

 

[Crimson_Gold]

Alright you better not mention the TV part of your system at all during the E3 conference.

Oh but they will. There is going to be some TV stuff shown off in some way. They won't be able to resist

 

[DragonSworne]

I don't think the issue people are having with Xbox One has anything to do with the conference, it's the shitstorm that was revealed after the conference.

E3 isn't going to change any of that.

 

[farisr]

15 exclusives and we aren't showing you a single one here. That's a big FU to gamers!

I think you meant, we're not showing live gameplay of a single one here.

They showed two exclusives already. Forza 5 and Quantum Break.

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Again, how is it backpedaling when they pretty much said this days before yesterday's reveal?

I wouldn't say it's back-pedalling as much as it's some needless sleight of hand. I mean, after E3, they could have the same sort of thing as this conference and only show their games on the show floor itself, and it wouldn't technically contradict their earlier statements.

They've handled the 'always-on' and second hand games issue in a similar way, with Don Mattrick seemingly confirming to Geoff Keighley there was no online requirement for the console, but with his deliberately woolly phrasing he actually dodged the question entirely. It's not technically lying, but to your prospective customers it might as well be.

 

[Sydle]

While I think we can all agree that this strategy was a failure, here is what was said before the conference:

I think it depends who you talk to. The mainstream media seems upbeat. The video game media seems pissed.

I think MS would be find alienating some gamers to get a bigger mainstream audience. Just a guess...

Over reacting to what?

The most dumbass reveal of a console ever.

Here's our new games console, lets talk about how you can watch tv and skype your mom at the same time.

Games? Where we're going we don't need no games!

I don't remember them ever calling it a games console. I think they intentionally called it an entertainment system.

 

[FtsH]

Why is everyone so afraid of talking about hardcore gaming? What's wrong with that? Seriously, I don't understand. Every company is acting like if they talks about gaming they are outdated. Did Xbox360 win because it focused on family and social content? Did PS3 loss because it had too much good games? Did Wii sports/fit/music/etc build a new Nintendo empire for the future? No!

 

[Revven]

Who cares about the games at this point when they're going to rip away being able to let your friends borrow your games? Like, seriously?

They're going to need a bigger crowd of people cheering at E3 if they don't want that conference room to be completely silent.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

I thought I'd read this somewhere before but I was mistaken.

If they showed all of the games today you'd all be at the E3 presser going "WHERE ARE THE GAMES?"

Microsoft's only options when unveiling a new console were to either show barely any gameplay outside of a multiplatform cross-gen Call of Duty, or show their entire E3 lineup. No in between.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

They didn't really show much of Live. Does it still have a mini dash in game for example? The sharing stuff is on PS4 so what are they going to do to still try and justify the Live fee?
What do the gamer profiles look like and things like that were never shown either.

Just a strange, very underwhelming reveal.

 

[kingocfs]

The vitriol in this thread is pretty weird. It's okay to admit that you MAY have jumped the gun on being extremely critical of a console after less than a day of hearing about it. Take a deep breath...

 

[Stumpokapow]

Actions speak louder then words and Sony proved they actually care way more about gamers while MS did the complete opposite. The "wait til E3" argument can only hold so much water and MS' conference for the reveal showed jack shit and pissed off everyone that's a gamer and the statement "15 games and 8 new IP's!" is really setting up to piss people off even further. Surely if they had such a treasure trove of games in the works they could have shown off a few more at the reveal.

"Actions speak louder than words" is an expression used when someone says one thing and does another thing. That's not what's occurring here. When someone says "We're going to focus on non-gaming stuff, big system vision stuff at this conference, and save our game stuff for E3" and then does a conference where they focus on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and says they're saving their game stuff for E3, and then they do a follow-up interview where they say "We were focusing on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and we're saving our game stuff for E3"... it's not really an applicable expression.

By all means, call it a bad reveal. And by all means, if they don't announce games at E3 then you're more than correct and attack them then.

But, like, imagine Apple sets up a press conference and they call it the iPad press conference and they say "We're announcing the new iPad. We're having a conference a month from now to discuss iOS and Mac stuff" and then they have a conference where they announce the new iPad and don't discuss iOS and Mac stuff... would the most logical reaction be to claim they're not planning on discussing iOS and Mac stuff ever, nothing is coming down the pipeline, it's all just a ruse, etc etc?

Note that I'm not arguing that it was a good reveal or a good strategy or anything like that (obviously at least among the gaming press and consumers, this was not a strategy that lead to any excitement or goodwill, that's obvious), and honestly Microsoft's first-party development hasn't historically been that great so I'm not really all that excited for their E3 announcements. I'm just saying there's a pretty logical A->B->C progression here that people seem to be deliberately ignoring. It's possible to dislike something or disagree with something without needing to attack it on every single point.

 

[Riposte]

I always give the benefit of the doubt come E3, so go ahead Microsoft.

 

[1-D_FTW]

No, I think you're underestimating the power of a good press conference/reveal on the fickle, jaded, enthusiast gamer.

The market, of course, won't give a damn. How they ultimately position themselves, their partners, their marketing and releases has much more to do with their success than a boring presser on a Tuesday morning. But if you're talking about a niche consumer like us, the pendulum can swing wildly at the drop of a hat.

All good points, but it's still a mistake to just take the enthusiast crowd for granted and only care about the casual crowd for your unveiling (while completely alienating the core crowd).

This was Nintendo's playbook with Wii U. And in case the obvious needed to be hammered home, Nintendo learned that launch systems have to appeal to the hardcore. And they'll demonstrate their new toy and the casuals will follow off that. If the hardcore ignore it, the casuals will never be evangelized into the eco-system.

The NFL fantasy football app will never be sold to casuals if the hardcore market abandons the launch and they don't show off their new system to everyone.

I also echo what everyone else said. They did spend a bunch of time talking about games. It was just a bunch of worthless CG that everyone hates. Two seconds of CoD was all they showed that was real.

 

[Marcel]

They showed two exclusives already. Forza 5 and Quantum Break.

- Game everybody knew was coming
- Apparently a revival of those embarrassing 1995 live-action FMV incorporated games

Two lukewarm exclusives like that ain't cutting the mustard, especially when you consider the draconian anti-consumer things revealed afterward.

 

[badcrumble]

I think part of the problem is the assorted murmurings that MS didn't expect a negative reaction to this presser at all. Saying that they planned for it to make people unhappy is spin, pure and simple, even if the plan was always for E3 to be much more game-focused.

 

[Mr.Wreckless]

"Actions speak louder than words" is an expression used when someone says one thing and does another thing. That's not what's occurring here. When someone says "We're going to focus on non-gaming stuff, big system vision stuff at this conference, and save our game stuff for E3" and then does a conference where they focus on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and says they're saving their game stuff for E3, and then they do a follow-up interview where they say "We were focusing on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and we're saving our game stuff for E3"... it's not really an applicable expression.

By all means, call it a bad reveal. And by all means, if they don't announce games at E3 then you're more than correct and attack them then.

But, like, imagine Apple sets up a press conference and they call it the iPad press conference and they say "We're announcing the new iPad. We're having a conference a month from now to discuss iOS and Mac stuff" and then they have a conference where they announce the new iPad and don't discuss iOS and Mac stuff... would the most logical reaction be to claim they're not planning on discussing iOS and Mac stuff ever, nothing is coming down the pipeline, it's all just a ruse, etc etc?

Note that I'm not arguing that it was a good reveal or a good strategy or anything like that (obviously at least among the gaming press and consumers, this was not a strategy that lead to any excitement or goodwill, that's obvious), and honestly Microsoft's first-party development hasn't historically been that great so I'm not really all that excited for their E3 announcements. I'm just saying there's a pretty logical A->B->C progression here that people seem to be deliberately ignoring. It's possible to dislike something or disagree with something without needing to attack it on every single point.

This post should be at the top of every XB1 thread.

 

[Feorax]

A huge problem with debuting the console with this stuff is that the majority of it focuses solely on the US. Spending 20 minutes on TV functionality that's based around US cable, or US fantasy sports and leagues, and then spending another 5 minutes announcing a groundbreaking, yet seemingly vague partnership with the NFL just puts me off.

I already felt excluded from this reveal when they focused on TV, and film, and Internet Explorer. Then the whole thing was covered in a thick American icing that I just can't enjoy.

I don't think people get quite how massive a deal this is. Forget the games for a minute, we know that's E3, but if Microsoft really wanted to show their vision at yesterday's presser, as this seems to suggest, then basically their vision doesn't consider territories outside the US a part of it.

The outcome of yesterday is that I don't feel they want me as a consumer, which is a fucking terrible way to reveal hardware. E3 will struggle to turn that around.

 

[Salaadin]

So you want the first impression of your console to be a bad one? This is so messed up. what the hell were they thinking?

Isn't it obvious that they were nowhere near ready to announce this thing? I mean, almost every major rumor about "One" has turned out more or less true - so it's glaringly obvious now that the "MS is 6 months behind in game development" rumor was just as accurate. It explains everything. The short presentation, the hurried look at a very narrow breadth of games, employees not having their messaging and facts all straight...

I think it's pretty clear they wanted to present this thing with a better balance between features and games but had no choice but to settle with whatever they had because they had to move up their timetable so much. Regardless of E3's proximity, everybody wants to make a good first impression.

Sorry defenders, but this event was not sold as some small prelude to a bigger, better reveal. It was sold to everyone and presented as the beginning of a new generation.

What worries me is whether or not this thing was actually played at all yesterday. The OS presentation seemed scripted to hell and back, the EA stuff was prerendered, Remedys game and COD were video. All the hands on stuff right now is with the controller and Kinect. I know they showed the box but did that box even have any guts inside of it?

E3 is 3 weeks away. Will it be ready then?

 

[Clockwork5]

as an employee of a marketing department...

Intentionally revealing your new product with all the features that your target audience won't like it's plain stupid.

It happens all of the time. Get the bad news out way in advance of the good stuff. Try to beat the leaks, give people time to mull this over and it wont be so fresh in their heads when the "good" stuff is announced.

Also, I am MS's target audience and I didn't see anything that
a. I wasnt expecting , or
b. I auto reacted with venom towards

 

[Liamario]

That just doesn't make sense. 'Let's talk about the parts of the system people don't like...'

If people don't like them, why are you focusing on them in the first place?!

 

[jmood88]

I think they showed that games aren't necessarily the thing with which they want to get people to buy their system.

No they didn't, they showed that they want people to use their machine for gaming and other things.

 

[Azih]

Maybe... they could have had this event after E3 then?

 

[Marleyman]

15 exclusives and we aren't showing you a single one here. That's a big FU to gamers!

2 weeks; you can't wait that long? They wanted to tout the features of the system so E3 isn't all about those features that GAF hates so much; E3 will be about games. If it isn't about games than there is a problem.

 

[CrunchinJelly]

"Actions speak louder than words" is an expression used when someone says one thing and does another thing. That's not what's occurring here. When someone says "We're going to focus on non-gaming stuff, big system vision stuff at this conference, and save our game stuff for E3" and then does a conference where they focus on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and says they're saving their game stuff for E3, and then they do a follow-up interview where they say "We were focusing on non-gaming stuff and big system vision stuff and we're saving our game stuff for E3"... it's not really an applicable expression.

By all means, call it a bad reveal. And by all means, if they don't announce games at E3 then you're more than correct and attack them then.

But, like, imagine Apple sets up a press conference and they call it the iPad press conference and they say "We're announcing the new iPad. We're having a conference a month from now to discuss iOS and Mac stuff" and then they have a conference where they announce the new iPad and don't discuss iOS and Mac stuff... would the most logical reaction be to claim they're not planning on discussing iOS and Mac stuff ever, nothing is coming down the pipeline, it's all just a ruse, etc etc?

Note that I'm not arguing that it was a good reveal or a good strategy or anything like that (obviously at least among the gaming press and consumers, this was not a strategy that lead to any excitement or goodwill, that's obvious), and honestly Microsoft's first-party development hasn't historically been that great so I'm not really all that excited for their E3 announcements. I'm just saying there's a pretty logical A->B->C progression here that people seem to be deliberately ignoring. It's possible to dislike something or disagree with something without needing to attack it on every single point.

Good post, stump.

Let's just hope they keep to their promises when e3 comes around.

 

[DragonSworne]

Why are people pretending the problem with Xbox One was the conference?

 

[jmood88]

Easy for Microsoft to say this after the fact.

As we've been saying over and over, this was said long before the presentation.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

They said this before the reveal itself. I don't know why people were surprised at lack of gameplay demo or more games.

Of course, they now have to over deliver on the "E3 is about games" part at E3.

 

[Chittagong]

"We didn't want people to like it anyway!!!"

* runs upstairs crying and slams door shut *

 

[jmood88]

It's totally unreasonable that consumers dislike something anti-consumer. Totes unreasonable.

This has nothing to do with what either of us said.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

- Game everybody knew was coming
- Apparently a revival of those embarrassing 1995 live-action FMV incorporated games

Two lukewarm exclusives like that ain't cutting the mustard, especially when you consider the draconian anti-consumer things revealed afterward.

Not to mention that if history is any indication ill be able to buy Quantum Break on PC at some point.

 

[Des0lar]

Announce "FIRST REVEAL OF NEW MS CONSOLE"

Make it "the part that people don't like"


Fucking MS you morons

 

[ThisWreckage]

As we've been saying over and over, this was said long before the presentation.

It is irrelevant when it was said. To say that you loaded the unveiling event of your product with lame, boring parts that people don't like is either disingenuous or flat out stupid. There's no escaping that. It doesn't matter if it was said five years ago.

 

[jmood88]

Why is everyone so afraid of talking about hardcore gaming? What's wrong with that? Seriously, I don't understand. Every company is acting like if they talks about gaming they are outdated. Did Xbox360 win because it focused on family and social content? Did PS3 loss because it had too much good games? Did Wii sports/fit/music/etc build a new Nintendo empire for the future? No!

Do you read the npd or media create threads? If not, look through them and you'll see why they want their gaming machine to have other ways to make them money.

 

[Tuck]

Ok, so that was their direction for the event. But that was a poor direction to take. Yes, it frees up time during E3 - great. But they still should have taken the time to announce games (as Sony did - they can announce the rest at E3. If you have 15 games to show, there is plenty to go around). And, they should have cleared up the sketchier aspects of the system that came out afterwards, instead of having 5 different execs saying 5 different things.

Its a video game console reveal. There should have been video games.

 

[1-D_FTW]

I thought I'd read this somewhere before but I was mistaken.

Good lord. It doesn't do anything my DVR does. WTF is he talking about? This was the most disappointing aspect of it. It's a bunch of nothing in that regard.

 

[Owzers]

I thought I'd read this somewhere before but I was mistaken.

i want to know how dvr devices are going to get buried by consoles that don't have dvr capability? Because i can change channels with my voice?

^^ almost beat you.

 

[jaypah]

That piece is PR fluff trying to deflect from the disaster that was their conference, it is spin to push attention towards E3 with a promise of delivering where they failed to today. It's clear that the reveal was a focus on the hardware and on vision, both of which largely failed to impress. MS has a shoddy reveal with a plethora of bad news following (which they conveniently omitted from the conference) so we have every right to doubt their competency. Yes there will be lots of games at E3, but to claim the reveal of the system was just flotsam before delivering what people actually want is inane, the reveal sets the tone for the rest.

MS fucked up.

Well they kind of said that's what this was going to be. They also said E3 would be about games. In that regard they were honest, not back peddling because of a shitty show. The part that sucks is that it was a shitty show. A shitty, shitty, shitty show. So much so that I don't know if games can save them (on GAF).


Shitty show.

 

[LTWheels]

They did say a few days before the console announcement that this original reveal was not going to be about the games. That E3 will be we're the games are.

This should be no surprise for anyone.

 

[jmood88]

It is irrelevant when it was said. To say that you loaded the unveiling event of your product with lame, boring parts that people don't like is either disingenuous or flat out stupid. There's no escaping that. It doesn't matter if it was said five years ago.

It's not irrelevant at all when people are constantly crying "spin", despite the fact that this is the same thing Microsoft has been saying for awhile. As far as the comment about the presentation being about the "boring" stuff, look at who he is talking to. He's talking about the stuff that gamers would find boring during E3, not that the stuff is boring in general.