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Monday, May 4, 2015

The Xbox One Two Years After the Reveal



The Xbox One came out 501 days ago[1]. The Xbox One has certainly changed my life. It’s the reason, I got a job. That was a big change but lets get done talking about William.
            The Xbox One had all of the hype in world going for the it .Its predecessor the Xbox 360 Dominated the North American market aside from the Wii; but, when your comparing it to its competitors (PlayStation, Wii),the Xbox 360 was king. The Xbox 360 on a consistent basis doubled the sales of the PlayStation 3. It seemed Microsoft had its next console success story in the bag but in the video game industry, there is something called the Third Console curse[2] where a company that does well with their third entry into market gets to high and mighty for their own britches. This happened with the N64 going with cartridges instead of the more institutive and efficient CDs and Nintendo giving third parties[3] to the wolves. Nintendo has a problem of thinking it can supply all of the games for its own console. Sure there games are great but when games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and Assassin Creed come out and it doesn’t land on a Nintendo platform, it makes them look like  a joke. This also happened with the PlayStation 3, it officially was priced at $600 and that was absurd at the time. When one considers that the Xbox 360 was equivalent, if not better hardware wise and it was only priced at $300.  
            The “Reveal” of the Xbox One, was a huge a bummer for me. It was terrible amount of time spent on TV, Sports and NFL partnership, it was absolutely ridiculous.  I am a huge Xbox fan but this made me distraught as a fan and a gamer. This was the future of Xbox? There was even a rumor going around after the reveal that Microsoft was going to sell Xbox Brand, I was worried. The reason I care so much about Xbox was because it was my first console and Xbox was my escapism from my parents’ divorce and all the other bad events that happened. Then just to see, the first steps of Xbox One be such a failure. I see more games on a commercial, then I did on the Xbox Reveal and it was an hour long. Then here are my sources about how terrible the Xbox One[4] Reveal[5] was[6]. The sources are to prove, I’m not just a loner complaining.
            Aftermath, this was the worst public relations damage control, known to man. Here was one of the conversations between the press and a Xbox One representative . Press said “I was wondering, a lot of soldiers overseas want to play Xbox One but they don’t have a reliable internet connection, what do you say to our active duty soldiers”? Xbox One Rep said, “We have a product for people overseas it called a Xbox 360”. This was offensive because it implied that the serving troops aren’t good enough to play on Xbox One and it also proves that Xbox is being represented by a bunch of twerps. A lot of people blame Don Mattrick for leading Xbox into a full blown nose dive. Xbox fired over 40 people for the Xbox One reveal and public relations disaster.
            There is one, a true savior and that is Phil Spencer. Is someone who I have immense respect for. He took over Xbox when it seemed like, it was a lost cause. It had already looked like a failure and it hadn’t even hit the market. Phil Spencer took over between the reveal and E3. Now what is E3 one asks themselves? Wells it’s the super bowl for video games. This is where all of the new games, get gameplay shown and new games are announced. Phil Spencer proceeded to go on stage and show a hour and half of video games straight. I was in bliss and I later went out that day a got a job at the grocery store. The reason this was important, at this point was that the Xbox One was totally a buzz kill and this was the first time that gaming was the priority of a gaming console. He gave me confidence in the Xbox Brand again, I can’t thank him enough. Phil Spencer cares about games and he understands games, not like Don Mattrick. Phil Spencer isn’t a corporate suit, he’s gamer.
            So how is Xbox One doing two years later, well its sold over 10 million consoles and its already outsold the Wii U. It has allowed for games to be made that would not have been made without the Xbox Ones existence and it provides thousands of American jobs and millions of people’s enjoyment.  So next time, you slander a nerd for crying about how his favorite game company closing, just remember how you felt when Friends ended.
            This editorial had a lot of lessons, that we take for granted such as leadership and getting through a rough spot. It shows that, sure we shouldn’t be defined by the stuff we own but I do think there is something to be said about being attached to something we have. So the next time, you look at that plastic machine they call a Xbox and remember it is much more than a machine that plays games.

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