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RUMOR (Polygamia.pl): XBONE to launch only in 13, not 21 countries

Tycho_b

Member
It's one of the biggest gaming websites in Poland and they had 1-2 global news first, but never anything related to Microsoft (at least I don't remember anything).

It's also in hands of the biggest Polish newscorp. 90% chance it's legit - they meet MS guys for lunch every day.
 

Hindle

Banned
To erm rephrase my original comment, they'll focus on the markets that buy the most videogames initially. Then they'll release everywhere else.
 
So almost half the countries will get the system at launch.

Looks more and more like going Region free and removing that DRM was the right answer...on so many levels.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Ideally, Friday late afternoon. It's a cliche how companies in all industries, not just gaming, release unpopular news via a press release late on Friday to avoid some of the negative PR but it's actually pretty effective.

Bonus if you release the press release the afternoon before a long weekend or a guaranteed big news event like the beginning of E3 or the Olympics or something. It's actually hilarious how often companies and even governments around the world just so happen to release a bit of bad news the day before the Olympics or World Cup starts lol.


Does that work so well in the Internet age? You give people two days to go crazy about something and possibly misread/blow things out of proportion and you can't respond until Monday.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
So almost half the countries will get the system at launch.

Looks more and more like going Region free and removing that DRM was the right answer...on so many levels.

If they need a day one patch to go region free and remove the DRM - will you be able to patch if you aren't first in an official country?
 

ethomaz

Banned
RAM and now that...

Please some insider GAFer leaks something because two bigger rumors in the same day is too much for my little mind.
 

calder

Member
Does that work so well in the Internet age? You give people two days to go crazy about something and possibly misread/blow things out of proportion and you can't respond until Monday.

Certainly not as well now, but it is still definitely effective especially for larger corporate news. Governments and large companies tend to be able to effectively ignore Twitter chatter or emails from random customers/citizens etc. They often only feel forced into giving a response by reporters or official requests - and those people will be asking questions due to their jobs, and normally that'll be an EOB (regular business hours) thing. Do it Friday afternoon, let the internet freak out a bit, and then the story will in some ways be old news before it gets to actually be 'news' on Monday. Takes a bit of the heat out of it at least. In Canada it's absurd how often a negative or embarrassing government report will just so happen to get sent out late on a Friday before a long weekend. ;P

I agree it seems like it might be counterproductive to let a bad rumour run wild over the weekend when the actual story might not be as damaging as the rumour, but if the actual story is less negative for the company than the speculation around it they wouldn't likely try to bury it in the first place. Granted this also assumes the company gets to decide when to break the news itself.

I think it's not quite as effective as it used to be especially for an industry like gaming both because the fanbase can make an inordinate amount of noise online and because the enthusiast press is a significant component, and people who write for a gaming website versus a old-media newspaper are much more likely to call and email for a story on the weekend.
 

vctor182

Member
You guys wanted a good news Friday??

peasant.gif
 
IMO, if Microsoft is going to be supply constrained, this is a good move. They'll likely lose in those "Tier 2" countries regardless. They need as much inventory as they can manage to try and fend off Sony in Microsoft's strongholds, i.e., the U.S. and UK.
 

labaronx

Member
IMO, if Microsoft is going to be supply constrained, this is a good move. They'll likely lose in those "Tier 2" countries regardless. They need as much inventory as they can manage to try and fend off Sony in Microsoft's strongholds, i.e., the U.S. and UK.

should they be that worried about sony that they almost slash their launch countries in half just to be in a more competitive position to fight sony in the UK and US early on or wait until the following fall for halo 5 to drop

 
IMO, if Microsoft is going to be supply constrained, this is a good move. They'll likely lose in those "Tier 2" countries regardless. They need as much inventory as they can manage to try and fend off Sony in Microsoft's strongholds, i.e., the U.S. and UK.

It also gives them time to actually roll out cloud servers to those countries. If you are going to market around the advantages these servers bring to games, it would certainly help if they existed.
 
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