EricBall's Tech Projects

That was good! If only you worked for them back in the day they produced consoles with RROD

Thanks. It's all about starting from a positive which everything else can be linked to and trying to cast any negatives as positives.

 

Another idea I had is for the discs to include a free demo in addition to the full install. So you could borrow the disc from the library and play the demo, then install the full version & pay the download price.

 

But as I said in another thread, I think the Internet requirement and $100 price difference are going to have a much greater impact on sales than the used game restrictions.

 

I'm not sure I could have made the RROD into a positive. IIRC in the beginning the cause wasn't well understood, then it wasn't known how widespread the problem was. Maybe at the end when you could spin it as a a free upgrade...

Actually, they did a pretty good job of taking care of my RROD consoles. I still experienced it more than once due to it being a inherent defect.

 

I can't explain how much better your spin is. I can say that their slow burn strategy for revealing potential drawbacks isn't working at all.

 

At least on the software side they have the sneaky creepy tactics down. When you introduce a negative feature like license keys and activation you allow an out AT FIRST. Once Joe End User has accepted things the IT staff have no choice but to accept as well.

 

Many University copies of XP for students were activation free. A few years later activation was mandatory even on those discs. Now even server software has it.

Microsoft's final straw was in telling their own customer base, "we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it’s called Xbox 360. If you have zero access to the Internet, that is an offline device."

 

The tone of that is incredibly arrogant, condescending, and completely blind to the fact that most of the people who would be interested in an Xbone are ones who already own a 360. Do they not have anyone to think about this stuff from a consumer's perspective before someone opens their mouth to say something stupid? (The answer to that, by the way, is no.)

Yep, they couldn't have said, "Buy a PS4 or a Wii U - they don't require Internet for DRM; and they're cheaper to boot!" although I suspect that's what will happen. The guys in camo will buy the PS4 and the families at the cottage will get the Wii U.

 

I predict the PS4 will outsell the Xbone 2:1 this November - January, especially if MS doesn't drop the price or otherwise change the status quo.

They could have at least bent the truth and said they will continue to bring exciting new games to the 360 for those without high-speed internet. If they are going all in with always on then they should cover their bets with a lowest common denominator console.

Well, that didn't take long. I think they beat New Coke's record for corporate backpedaling.

"Your Feedback" aka "PS4 Preorders"

 

I predict next week you'll get that thing without Kinect for a $100 less

Since EA just abandoned their Online-Pass following "Customer Feedback", I wonder if they'll now reintroduce it

I have to admit I was shocked at the news. I guess the pre-E3 discontent to the vague messages wasn't enough to make them change their minds. So something must have occurred after the E3 announcements. Maybe it was the pre-orders, or maybe they got some analyst feedback which would have impacted their stock outlook.

 

And I was obviously wrong thinking it couldn't be changed. I had forgotten that it's just software, and software can be changed.

 

Manuel, you're probably right. MS needs to bring the price of the XB3 in line with the PS4 and dropping the Kinect would likely allow them to do that.

 

Given the two consoles are so similar, I suspect there will be little difference between non-exclusive games. Which means the "winner" will be determined by the exclusive games - especially the launch games. I should try to do some analysis.

Prior to E3, nobody knew what Sony was going to do. There had been a lot of speculation they would follow a similar DRM path, and when they didn't, that's when everything hit the fan because there was a real point of comparison that could be made.

 

What I would love to know (and we never will) is if Sony was planning a similar DRM approach prior to the Xbone's original announcement, and the negative reaction from that changed their minds (even to a small degree).