Xbox 360 Fanboy

Keep banging out new and friendly IP over Arcade, and for goodness sake put out a decent casual platformer or two. The slew of RPGs coming out soon should also help.

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Live Arcade can grow to fulfill that role, but not by releasing hardcore goodies like Alien Hominid and Double Dragon...

I could care less if the 360 develops a cutesy, brand-friendly platformer even though that would undoubtedly bring in the casual, mainstream audience.

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Why does this article sound like it contradicts itself?

Microsoft having problem converting the xbox base to the new console. I understand. Yet, 10.4 mil, half of them are pretty much ps2 owners. So it's not going to sell the amount the ps2 did, yet the 360 has alot of ps2 owners, and alot of them are casual, that I know of. I don't know, I want to agree with the article, but there is something there that doesn't make sense. Besides, what do we mean as casual? someone that buys one game and plays it once every week? The hardcore gamers are the real backbone of the videogame developers.

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Yeah Killer thats pretty much what a casual is. I only have 4 360 games and am planning only buying 3 for the rest of the year (Forza2, Assasin's Creed & GTA4). I don't have as much time as I used to as I have gone on to do other things, but They're always good when weather sucks.

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400 USD for a system prices many out of the market. That's why PS2 sales remain so strong to this day. Combine that with 360's 50 dollar wireless controllers and a library that is shooter heavy, and it is easy to see why the 360 remains strong with mostly hardcore gamers.

That being said, hardcore gamers are a good bunch to tailor to. They have a high software attach rate.

I wouldn't be too worried about this market demographic business. The 360 is selling briskly, Nintendo has become the 360's biggest threat, and its pricing ensures that it is targeting a largely different audience.

The pie can be bigger for everyone to eat and slice, so to speak.

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The main thing I leave with is wondering what this "casual" gamer demographic actually is defined as by him and what real proof there is that these people don't own the system. I doubt there was a check box at the store about it. His facts to back this up help, but I don't know, it's hard to put all of my stock into that.

If we're to consider the main "casual" system, it's clearly. Wii Sports and the price alone help make that possible, but clearly also the control setup. At the same time, how important is that "issue" if most of the casual players with the system feel no real need to buy additional games beyond Wii Sports and MAYBE some other Nintendo stuff down the road? It's the GCN issue all over again.

Really, considering both Sony and MS will make all of their money from game sales and not hardware sales, it's not entirely negative to appeal to the hardcore userbase.

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I am a casual gamer only buying a few games each year, that's why i'm going out to spend £425.00 on a PS3, well worth the money!!!!!!!!!!

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i think the looming format war, and the relatively high price for a console is preventing ANYONE from purchasing a 360 -- or any console.

The problem is betraying gamers, and the industry, by turning a console into a media center. I am a gamer, and honestly, I have no desire to download movies, tv or other dookie on my console. I won't even put music on it.

I have a PC for that.

$250 is the lowest price for a console, and even that is too expensive. The reason why people are buying them is because we're hardcore gamers...

...it doesn't mean we didn't want to spend that much money, nor does it mean we wanted all the dookie they piled on an "entertainment center."

A Media Center + Video Game Console = Mediocre Gaming Entertainment, on any Console.

IMO.

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Oh i hate N'gai he is such a sony fanboy.
I think he needs to get over his hate for microsoft.

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Its the lack of variety, e.g. too many damn fps'! The lack of platformers and rpg's certainly don't help. Live Arcade is a flippin' joke. It's been around for what, 2+ yrs and what do they have to show? Clones of early 80's arcade bottom feeders. To sum it up MS needs to secure much more VARIETY.

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"Please don't use pricing as an excuse; as we pointed out above, there' a $299 SKU that's been available since launch, and if PS2 was able to become a runaway success at the same point in its lifespan at that price point, price alone can't explain the sales gap.) "

Sorry but you don't understand whats wrong with the core system. Either MS is overpricing accessories, or MS needlessly crippled the core system by not including a ram card with it, or a reduced HD size. Out of the box, I can't save anything... games, achievements, nothing. I need a ram card or HD, and the HD at $100 means I might as well spring for a Premium. To buy a ram card, it's $40... that's not all that much cheaper than a premium and can be filled quickly. The core is a horrible value because it requires buying an add on peripheral to do much of anything with it (especially to play Halo 2).

You simply cant dismiss the pricing problem of the 360... the 360 costs $400 and that's just a lot more than most people are willing to spend on a console. Reduce the price of both bundles by $100 and reduce the cost of the add on HD to $50 and people will start buying more core systems for $200 +$50.

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I do think that the 360 is expensive for many of the "casual gamers" but hopefully the 360 will see a price cut soon. I think MS is enjoying making money off the hardware and w/ sony applying absolutely no pricing pressure MS has little reason to drop the price quite yet.

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Duh people.

The 360 is for HD televisions. I'm sure the sales of the 360 trend to HD TV sales. Look at the Wii -- that's for a SD TV; sure the motion thing is pretty tits, but it's really the only next-gen thing you can buy for your old clunker CRT.

Pity the 360 doesn't have an HDMI. It's progressive with the HD, but not with the real HD hook ups. How very much like MS -- a day late and a dollar short.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch The Sarah Silverman Show on my Apple TV.

Cuddles.

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Rubbish. Over 50% of the people I know with 360's have bought one because of Gears of War alone. My Live friends list has doubled since November.

Surely it's a hardcore group now, but early adopters usually are (it's been less than a year since 360's have been readily available), and it's really OK for Microsoft to get all of us nerds by the giblets first... the casual will come with Halo 3 and GTA IV.

N'gai got that much right, but when your dedicated gamers are buying up mediocre imports like hotcake because we're content starved, publishers start to notice that unproven genres and j-games are worth bringing to the platform. Then they start wondering about their big guns performance potential. Thus the appeal of the 360's library broadens, as does the appeal of the console itself.

Isn't that pretty much how Sony took Sega out of the console scene with the PS1 and established the credibility of the Playstation brand? Could the PS2 have succeeded so enormously without the hardcore gamer content so inherently associated with the brand?

Wasn't Nintendo's near-fatal misstep losing Squaresoft? will it be Sony's too?

Microsoft has been taking a page out of Sony's playbook from day one with the xbox brand. The 360 is going to be their PS2 if anything is, it has to be.

With Sony running at a $600 pricepoint, PS3's collecting dust on store shelves only months after launch, and console exclusives dropping like flies- Microsoft HAS to succeed now. If they can't do it now, with the release schedule they've got lined up over the rest of the year, they may as well get out of the business entirely.

Besides- they're gonna drop the price on the premium 360's at retail by fall. Bet on it.

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Wich console was massively adopted by the casual gamers at a US$300 price point.

The king of casuals, PS2, was only seen by the casuals after it's price went down to US$200, over a 1 and 1/2 year after it's release in NA.

Like Moore said on the interview he gave to EGM: We didn't even started to scratch the casual market yet.

This article is 100% bullshit. Is not based on the cold and imparcial observation of facts.

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The 360, may not be, or may never be a casual console, and i'm not sure I really care. The PS2's greatest success was it's appeal to the casual market, boosting the widest selection of game types... very few of which I personally found any good (or at least playable for longer periods of time), and the same went for the psone generation.

Of course there will always be a casual game market, but when all you have to do is turn a profit is slap an '07' on a previously released game, it's hard to ignore the possibility that developers are being lazy by appealing this demographics (at least to the extreme that some developers have gone to).

Of course I want the 360 to be a success, but not at the cost of developers thinking they can cut corners and still make money, cuz really... some gamers will play anything (I'm looking at you Final Fantasy/Metal Gear Solid/Kingdom Hearts!).

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Stranger: "Isn't that pretty much how Sony took Sega out of the console scene with the PS1 and established the credibility of the Playstation brand?"

well, sony took sega out, because it was the one eyed king leading the blind: the only games worth playing during that generation were PC games, and not everyone had em.

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People will finaly upgrade to a 360 when Halo 3 comes out.

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IMO, the more hardcore the console stays, the better for me as a gamer. with the increasing success of Live and multiplayer online gaming, i want my games to be as competative as possible. by opening the market up to the "casual gamer" the game competition gets watered down.

not to mention the fact that competitive gaming is at an all-time high and is only going to continue to rise. people talk about hardcore gamers all the time, but they never talk about the growth of the hardcore gaming market. look at what Halo 2 did for gaming. people's lives stopped for that game. with games like Halo 3, GoW, etc, etc, the hardcore gaming demographic is going to grow.

and as Sony keeps losing exclusives, especially if they lose FF 9000000 or whatever it is, then MS console sales are going to boost even more.

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I think this article is right on, actually. If you go read it in its entirety. I love my original XBox, but I own a grand total of 5 games for it that I actually like. I am getting ready to buy a 360, because I prefer the XBox controller and love Crackdown, but I really only like 2 games on the 360. So while I'm a supporter of the platform in general. I would really like to see Microsoft diversify into some original IP that isn't a shooter or racer.

It doesn't have to be a "cutesy platformer". I have never been very taken with the Jak and Daxter games. But I have been taken with games like Katamari or Ico or Shadow of the Colossus or Okami. Games that Microsoft just isn't developing nor luring to the 360.

Now, saying that there could be a little chicken and the egg thing going on here. i.e. No one has developed an Ico or Katamari for the 360 because the install base is considered to be hardcore and they don't seem to be capable of moving enough units to the casual gamers who appreciate games like that. That's entirely possible. We'll see if a game like Guitar Hero starts changing that dynamic. It could.

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