Chumming the Waters of Microsoft's Defeat
There’s been a lot of information flying around about the Big Three since the beginning of the year and the rumor mill has been churning for years. Now that we actually KNOW what Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are bringing / brought to the table this year, it’s time for some serious comparisons with no fanboyisms. I have owned consoles from all 3 of these companies and thoroughly enjoyed games from all of them. This is just how I see the current state of things as I’ve watched these three companies battle for support and sales. I’m going to focus on one at a time as I have a lot to say on each of them.
Microsoft
PR Nightmare
Since the beginning of the year Microsoft has been getting some seriously bad PR about their new console. This is not a new thing for any of the major companies and so them handling it quickly and accurately should have been the first thing to be read in the news after each of the horrific rumors. Instead, Microsoft chose to let the rumors sit for months and let the gamer rage build. Gamer rage is something that each company has experienced at one point, most recently before this with the numerous PS3 debacles and it isn’t a pretty thing. E3 rolls around and everyone thinks to themselves, okay so Microsoft was silent when these horrific rumors were brought to light, they must just be waiting until E3 to set everyone straight. Wrong, all of the rumors were true and the entire gaming community was horrified. During the conference, numerous Microsoft leaders issued various statements and responses to the gamer rage, nearly all to the effect of the coined phrase “deal with it”. Let the internet trolling and meming begin. Later, they reversed these policies and packaging details after Sony came out and completely obliterated them and even laughed at them. They were forced into a corner and had to do a complete 180 and the result was much more acceptable, but the question still stands: will they try and pull something like this again?
Second Son Syndrome
Let me first explain my metaphor of the second son: there are two sons, one older and one younger. The oldest son makes some mistakes and gets in the dog house with his parents here and there and the youngest son learns from him and doesn’t make the same mistakes. The oldest son is always playing catch up with the youngest and he keeps getting angry at his brother and believes that he thinks he is so perfect and is the favorite child. The oldest begins to feel like a second rate son. The youngest son is just glad of the older brother and his mistakes because it shows him what not to do and his parents genuinely do find him easier to raise because there is less they have to teach him. Microsoft is the older brother, Sony the younger, and gamers the parents in this scenario. Microsoft keeps playing catch up with Sony because they screw up and Sony comes in and gives the correct answer and then they are forced to go back and change their answer. The question here is, would you rather side with a company who learns from the mistakes of others or is constantly making the wrong choices and having to play catch up with the competition? Microsoft needs to step up its game. It has changed its tune on nearly every single item that it originally had planned from the massive used games fail to even including a headset in the box and is desperately floundering around in the water trying to stay in the game. It’s extremely pathetic to watch and I have lost any and all respect for the company.
The Pulse of an Alien
With all of these PR nightmares and playing catch up with Sony, it should really make the consumer stop and think about Microsoft’s mindset. Sony clearly has a finger on the pulse of the gaming community and know what they want. Microsoft, on the other hand, has their finger on the pulse of an alien and keep thinking the gaming community will give them a gold star for making all of these decisions that would make no sense if they listened to the community. While it may be true that Microsoft has been slowly being forced back to sanity, the fact that they no longer have a clue what their audience wants is extremely disturbing.
The Tyrant
Microsoft’s rigid initial belief that they were in charge of the market instead of the public and that gamers would have to conform to their way of thinking if they forced them to is a bit of a scary one. They never polled their fans to see if the changes they wanted to implement found favor with the public, they just did them and told everyone else to deal with it. The ONLY reason they reversed anything was because they feared losing sales, not because they actually came to understand the public’s point of view. As soon as they are allowed to, they absolutely will attempt a new Microsoft regime and anyone unfortunate enough to own an Xbox One will suffer underneath it when that day comes.
Xbox One: The First Racist Console
Okay, okay, so it is more of a regional issue than race, but the title sounded pretty scary. A few months ago, Microsoft announced that the X1 would not be available in many, many countries and would not support online play even if gamers bought the console elsewhere and brought it home. In June, they announced that it would be available in 21 countries, which was a big step up for them. Months later, they dropped the online only part of their plan, so things were looking up for some of the smaller countries. Until now. Microsoft announced August 14th that the console would not even be shipping to major countries such as Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland until “sometime” in 2014, a minimum of 2 months after the initial release. Why is this? Basically their excuse was they haven’t integrated certain languages and region codes into the system yet. Want to guess why this is? The same reason that only 10 Xbox One’s current exist in the universe right now. They keep changing their flipping minds about what exactly is going inside their little plastic black box. With all of the changes and policy reversals happening, the hardware designers can’t keep up and they are getting massively delayed. This announcement just severely crippled them because gamers in these countries who were going to get the X1 this holiday season, now literally HAVE to buy a PS4 instead. Microsoft just lost nearly all of their sales in 8 whole countries (many of which develop games for them by the way). What’s icing on the cake (the cake is a lie) is that gamers in these countries pre-ordered the X1 already. What do they get for this massive delay? A “Call us” and an unspecified game for free with the console (most likely the North Eastern Europe Screw Over 5000 game. I love that one). Nowhere in their announcement did they even apologize for the delay, they simply state that it is “regrettable” for THEM.
Cost and Benefit ?
Microsoft’s console costs a whopping $100 (+tax) more than Sony’s PS4. For that much extra, there must be something awesome about it, right? Wrong. The specs of the PS4 and Xbox One are nearly identical. The PS4 has slightly better RAM and the X1 recently upgraded its graphics card. Neither of these things make a difference though really. The reason for the cost boost is the Kinect and, unlike the PS Move, it is required and comes with every Xbox One. If one were to buy a PS4 with PS Move it would cost roughly the same as the Xbox One (still less though), but not everyone wants a motion sensor. A large percentage of the community doesn’t actually. Did Microsoft give a crap? Not even in the slightest. Complaints about the original Kinect can be found everywhere and very few people thought it was worth the money, but Microsoft refuses to let go of their bone because they think it is the future of all gaming, which is simply not true. Oculus Rift is, if anything.
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