My mind still can't comprehend what Microsoft's business strategy is with the FIFA 14 pre-order bonus. Seriously, my head is hurting trying to figure it out, and I genuinely want to understand. Ok, ok. From what I can gather, FIFA14 is a) for people who pre-ordered before the announcement at Gamescom, and b) only available for Europeans who are in "Tier 1" countries. So first of, let's point out that Microsoft are spending millions of dollars on people who pre-ordered regardless of all the shit and mayhem that went down with Microsoft's PR and marketing. Then, when the 180's were coming left and right people were given the chance to actually consider the Xbox One as a viable console, so fans could freely start pre-ordering it for the games. So at this point these are the people Microsoft have already won over, they don't need anymore convincing to buy the console because they've already placed down their pre-order. So instead of this deal helping to boost sale numbers it's for what, keeping them from cancelling? Goodwill? What do they stand to achieve?
I don't want to harp on it too much because it is still a nice gesture, but again unless I'm misinterpreting something here, there is no significant gain to be had. And by limiting it from the Tier 2 customers MS are only causing more tension. Shit, if anything the folks who were getting FIFA14 on the Xbox One can now freely cancel the pre-order for that game because they're receiving it anyway. They're inadvertently losing sales for EA. All I can say is Microsoft really have to knock it out of the park with whatever pre-order game/s they give to the US or Tier 2, because unless I am missing something here MS are hapazardly throwing cash around with no reasonable return of investment.
