When MS revealed a few weeks ago that the Xbox One will launch in less countries some people had theories on why this would be the case. Some theories included problems with manufacturing and MS stated that it would be down to localization of the OS and Kinect voice commands.
Now it was revealed that Kinect Voice Commands will be supported in the US and UK for English, Canada and France for French and Germany for German. The console will still launch in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Brazil this year while Scandinavian countries have been removed from the 2013 launch window as well as Russia and Switzerland.
Now the odd thing is that in Switzerland there are 3 official languages, French, Italian and German, and in the Scandinavian countries most people speak very well English because TV shows and movies are often only subtitled. More people in the Scandinavian countries speak English than in Spain or Italy and the average quality is better compared to those countries plus most games are not localized to Swedish, Dutch, Finnish or Norwegian in the first place.
Despite the reasons given by MS for the delay those reasons don`t appear true given the recent announcement of what languages Kinect will support at launch, because in that case it should be also delayed in Spain, Mexico, Italy and Brazil since Kinect will not support the languages for those countries at launch.
Gamesbeat caught up with Blackley to extract some wisdom about Microsoft’s journey in games, what he thinks Sharma should do, and where gaming can go next. Part of his message is hopeful, but Blackley sees a lot of peril on the road that Microsoft is following. And it makes him worry about the future of gaming.
Sarah Bond's "Xbox everywhere" strategy and controversial "This is an Xbox" campaign have been blamed for alienating Xbox employees and failing to deliver results, with multiple sources telling they're relieved by her departure.
This adds more clarity to the situation. She was in charge of marketing so I 100% do. Believe this was her. The fact that she pissed off a lot of ppl with this campaign was interesting. The kicker she kicked you out if you questioned her moves. Sounds like a Satya move to me.
Ok when it comes to the marketing of the Xbox maybe not get rid of where Xbox is at but advertise the console, bundle 1 month of GP and have "xbox everywhere" as a side thing or just a minor thing. It's too late for Series consoles but do this with their next console. If GP is 30$ this needs to justified ASAP put all of ABK. Remake remaster popular games and put those out on the service. Have a handful of AAA games come day one even. Perma exclusivety is dead however they can be timed. The would at least give ppl a somewhat of a reason to invest. Satya will not allow permanent exclusives again.
Do I still think Xbox is dead? Depends, how much will Satya not get involved and let Asha and Matt figure something out. The more I think about it, I think Satya only really gets involved if the financials aren't lookin so hot. I think Xbox going multiplat was a result of wanting make their money back from ABK and of course raise their unreasonable and near unrealistic margins.
Anyway, things did get interesting and adds nuance just how Xbox is ran.
I’ve read that article they put out on this and it just sounds like a massive hit piece on her. They’ve basically thrown her under the bus.
I highly doubt all of this was just her idea, especially the multiplatform stuff.
Ever since the Zenimax and Activision deal all eyes have been on the Xbox department. There’s no way she’d have acted alone with decisions as big as these, Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella would have been all over this aswell, especially with them both being higher than her.
When they brought her in I thought to myself she’d be used as a scape goat and here we are.
It’s the exact same thing they did when Don Mattrick left “oh it wasn’t our idea, it was all Don, our new leader Phil Spencer is a gamer and will turn things around”.
Exactly, they always have to pin it on someone. Everything was Don Mattrick's fault before. Now everything is Sarah Bond's fault.
People act like these companies don't have focus groups, board meetings, focus testing, etc for these ideas before they hit.
They'd rather blame her rather than the product they asked her to market. How else was she going to market playing your xbox games on any device? Has anyone stopped to think that the marketing was bad because the product itself was bad?
But I don't feel sorry for her, she knew the kind of people she was working with
Would it still be a hit piece if it was actually true? If she really was behind the whole everything is an xbox... then I say they took the chance and it didnt pay off. Most companies let people go over bad decisions like that.
That's just it darth72, it more than likely isn't the truth because we know she didn't have control over everything at Xbox. That would be Phil Spencer, who has Don Mattrick's old position.
And to be fair, even he can't be blamed for everything since it's highly unlikely all this goes on without Nadella's blessing at some point
While I am sure she played a key role in “everything is an Xbox” it is still a hit piece. We can’t forget that Phil was in charge and at the very least gave it his blessing.
this was definitely Not her own idea.
phil and others had their grubby hands all over it.
i never particularly liked her cause she so lived in delulu land, but i guess she did what she could, given in the bad state xbox was and still is
Gamers are going to be reminiscing, over the "this is an Xbox" glory days once we get Xbox Copilot powered by AI and "the power of the AI" crap they'll be trying to shove down our throats.
So going multiplat was her idea or the marketing was the issue? If it's the latter, who cares if it was her idea or not. The decision to go multiplat is the core issue not the marketing. The marketing I guess kept it from being a "mystery" on whether or not a game was exclusive or not.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard returns the series to its horror roots, and on the Nintendo Switch 2, you can take those frights everywhere.
Microsoft is really caught with their pants down here.
There's no way that Kinect commands are the reason; they've proven that they don't actually care about launching with voice commands.
There's no way that OS localization is the issue; again, they've proven that they don't care about missing features, so it's down to minor technical details and text.
I'm sure their "delay" in localization was manufactured and is just a legal loophole to avoiding telling investors that they're screwing up royally at keeping up with demand without lying.