How to sell next-gen consoles, Marketing, Positioning, and Pricing [2020]

The hilarious thing for me was that it's Bright Memory, a game by a one person, that looks awesome with real gameplay hahaha. While other AAA games were filled with cutscene and looks so current gen...
lol yup. haha... good things for those indies I guess.
 
Hahaha, that was pathetic, I knew Microsoft had a bunch of out of touch "power execs!" running the show. But I expected at least one or two actual trailers where you can see an actual gameplay screen and UI from the few triple A studios that can put up enough money to actually make use of the hardware. They didn't even manage that.

Damn, Nintendo can hit the snooze alarm again. I swear Sony and especially MS are so out of touch with how the average person wants to play games and what their priorities are it's amazing.
 
Think i need to just say again because i know I've come across extremely negative.
I don't mind negativity - I whinge more than most at everything these corporations do! I just don't understand the argument that this piece of marketing out of all the marketing MS has to do is the most important one.
 
It's not worse than Sony's bland showcases. I see no need for outrage.
I think the case here is not whether or not we see the outrage is valid.The question is why it exists.
The outrage exists, it's factually out there in the internet. Even Eurogamer, with whom Microsoft has partnered to reveal and present the new console's hardware specifications, was very critical of this "gameplay" reveal. This is not a fabrication out of a handful of B3D users.


that's fine, but I'm not seeing anything particularly difficult for XSX to reach here.
You know that because you're aware of the specs and you're aware of what said specs should be able to do.
I also don't see how these wouldn't be playable on a SeriesX the same way I don't see how it wouldn't be playable on a PC with a RX5700, or my PC with a Vega 64.

I don't think anyone's accusing Microsoft of not being able to deliver these graphics with the final console. Mainly because the graphics shown aren't anything special..



So what does it mean if the presentation was massively downvoted but the individual game trailers are massively upvoted? Read the tea leaves for me.
Easy: the presentation was hyped as the first glimpse of SeriesX' gameplay. The game trailers are being presented as trailers, which is what they are.
No one is putting the devs accountable for Microsoft announcing one thing and then showing another.

But can be said here; this is the direction games are headed. Sell the emotion, the atmosphere, the narrative, show graphics, toss smart dynamic game-play for curated big set pieces and quick time events.
I disagree. The most successful games out there have a focus on gameplay. There's little atmosphere, narrative and high-end graphics in Minecraft, Fortnite, PUBG, Mario and Pokemon.
You do want to try to show off all that on single player games, but there isn't a lack of beautiful and finely crafted games out there that failed due to poor gameplay.

Because it's Xbox's youtube channel so Microsoft has full control over what they choose to upload on their channel.


Think i need to just say again because i know I've come across extremely negative.
I personally was just mildy disappointed as expected couple big 3P AAA .
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a big 3P AAA game.
It's just that... Ubisoft didn't show any gameplay. Despite Microsoft repeatedly saying throughout the presentation they'd show gameplay, and after the video with absolutely no gamplay the Microsoft guy doubled down on saying how great that gameplay was..

That was weird as hell. Perhaps Ubisoft pulled the plug on a gameplay video at the last minute, and Microsoft didn't have enough time to rewrite their own scripts and re-record their parts?



MS can show whatever they want prior to release, even a load of concept renders, and people will bite.
Are you sure?





Last I heard about AC was how bad The xbox one/ ps4 one was that was utterly broken.
Your info is accurate but quite outdated. That was the case with Assassin's Creed Unity, which indeed came out broken.
Origins and Odyssey, which are both part of a soft reboot of sorts, came out pretty great and they were critically acclaimed.
After the reboot, Ubisoft determined they'd only launch an Assassin's Creed game every 2 years, which works immensely better than the yearly cadence they previously had for the main games causing franchise fatigue everywhere. Odyssey came out in October 2018, so it only makes sense that Valhalla is coming Q4 2020 with the new consoles.

I for one think Vikings aren't a great match to an Assassin's Creed game though, and I'm a big fan of both popular TV shows covering that era (Vikings on Prime and Last Kingdom on Netflix).
Ubisoft clearly has a problem with covering eastern countries with longitudes beyond Israel, which is such a shame.



Huh? Isn't it exactly the opposite? Show a load of CGI target renders and everyone gushes. Show real launch content and everyone bitches.
Are we talking about the same event? 90% of the complaints you see on the internet is the very fact that they did not show gameplay, and most of their content was exactly what you're saying everyone gushes about, target renders. Real launch content is precisely what the presentation lacked.
 
This was to be expected. Here are the reasons:

-Only 16 Gbyte Ram in both Consoles is not a big Jump compare to previous Genrerations. If you want CGI Qualitity with uncompressed Pixels , full Color Textures , huge Worlds with lots of Geometry etc.. you need at least 64 Gbyte minimum.

-Focusing on Compression, Streaming Technics instead of compromissless Brute Force Power.

-Focusing on Play Anywhere Ecosystem, Forward and Backcompatibility between Generations , Plattform independed Graphic Engines , Xbox X Series Hardware is holding back by the PC , Xbox One and DirectX12.

-No Support of a proper Hardware and Hardware optimized Code from Microsoft without any connections to PCs , Xbox One or Windows 10.

-using the same Engines from previous Generation, like Unreal, Unity, Cryengine etc.. Nextgen Consoles need new and fresh Engines building up from the Ground to support a proper new Hardware for great Visuals.

-lazy and untalented Devs without any good feeling about Artwork , Design and Colors.

-Not enough Time to create great Visuals , for Workarounds and Tricks in view of the Limitations and Restrictions these Nextgen Consoles have. So for a real Jump they need 2-3 Years.

This is a parody post, right?
 
I'm not sure why so many expected so much more from an InsideXbox show

They didn't :)

I hardly think this is the right approach.

Well, the competition has shown.... nothing.

just look at the cluster with The Last Of Us 2.

Wonder what of those got the bigger firestorm, my guess is last of us 2, knowing what they did to the series. Trust me, it's ugly.

This reveal wasn't important. Neither is the next one. Nor the one after that. Somewhere in the mix is an important reveal, but it can be between now and a few weeks before release.

I think everyone here was well aware of that :p

I think the case here is not whether or not we see the outrage is valid.The question is why it exists.

Not that much different to the outrage sony recieved for their first PS5 reveal on the 18th of march. Poor cerny got hated for the hardware, while he's not even responsible for it. How nice was that. It's the internets.
 
I whinge more than most at everything these corporations do! I just don't understand the argument that this piece of marketing out of all the marketing MS has to do is the most important one.
I would say it's because this is the first time you're actually getting to see what is supposed to be in earnest game play. And first impressions count. Although not terminal.

Talk about the specs, show the box, if those went wrong people wouldn't worry too much as what people are really interested in is the games.
Could be wrong but I suspect this would've been the most anticipated show, by most people. People who not interested in specs, how console looks, what everyone has in common is wanting to see the games. Probably first time also had lot of other platform owners interested in what xsx had to show also.

This was the first insight as to what people are paying for, and to a lot of people I'm sure it didn't look worth it.
 
I think the case here is not whether or not we see the outrage is valid.
Indeed. Never look to gamers to be just in their outrage. ;)

Are you sure?
Game wise.

Are we talking about the same event? 90% of the complaints you see on the internet is the very fact that they did not show gameplay, and most of their content was exactly what you're saying everyone gushes about, target renders.
By target renders, I mean 'target renders' - CGI that makes everyone go wooooooow but which aren't the slightest bit realistic. If you show CGI 'target' videos and up-sampled demos running 5 fps on a top-end PC that you compile into a 60 fps gameplay clip, you generate hype. If you show real content (and launch content tends to be pretty naff), you get this response, "Where's my next-gen?"

The problem here is MS have been too honest. Gamers (consumer) don't want reality but dreams. Sell them the moon - you never have to actually deliver.
 
The show was fine, it's just that their messaging was really off in more ways than one; This was billed as a 3p gameplay showcase when it should have been billed as sneak peak at or gameplay trailers from some indie and new partners for Xbox. Billed that way and its a really great showing. Also the fact that so much of the games on the show are at least console exclusive to Xbox is not indicated, neither is the website showing the technical information about the games. Here is the link by the way: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/optimized. This shows a lot of details about the games themselves. Bizarre stuff really.
Also having watched the videos of the game trailers individually in much better quality, the visual quality on show is fantastic, especially for what is mostly indie games and cross-gen games. Why they decided to stream this in such poor quality....
Anyway its fine. I am looking forward to a lot of the games shown with so many of them promising 4k60 with Dirt 5 having a 120fps mode. Fantastic stuff. Now to see what the big publishers and first-party games have to offer. Impressive mostly indie showing.
 
I disagree do like Guerrilla Games and Sony Santa Monica did with the reveal of KZ SF, Horizon Zero Dawn and God of war. No CGI, no in engine teaser (Hellblade 2 or Uncharted 4...:().

Micrososet set high expectation


People want this graphics quality during gameplay... I hope for Microsoft they will reach it in July.
 
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I disagree...
Disagree on what?
...do like Guerrilla Games and Sony Santa Monica did with the reveal of KZ SF, Horizon Zero Dawn and God of war. No CGI, no in engine teaser...
Sure, but you need those titles and in that state. When you have a game ready to show that way, show it. But it doesn't hurt to show a load of fake stuff when you don't have real gameplay to demonstrate, especially for a next-gen platform. Of the titles you've listed, only KZSF was in the reveal; the rest came later. In order to hype up the next-gen system, Sony used plenty of preview content like Deep Down, just like they did the previous generation with the CGI footage for PS3 games. Not showing actual launch games in the WIP state was great for generating excitement. If Sony had shown launch-titles in their months-before-release state, we'd have had very underwhelming experiences and gamers complaining about next-gen being a damp squib (as is happening here).
 
Disagree on what?
Sure, but you need those titles and in that state. When you have a game ready to show that way, show it. But it doesn't hurt to show a load of fake stuff when you don't have real gameplay to demonstrate, especially for a next-gen platform. Of the titles you've listed, only KZSF was in the reveal; the rest came later. In order to hype up the next-gen system, Sony used plenty of preview content like Deep Down, just like they did the previous generation with the CGI footage for PS3 games. Not showing actual launch games in the WIP state was great for generating excitement. If Sony had shown launch-titles in their months-before-release state, we'd have had very underwhelming experiences and gamers complaining about next-gen being a damp squib (as is happening here).

I disagree to show fake stuff. This is not working since a long time. E3 2005 was the worst but Uncharted 4 reveal or The Witcher 3 reveal were not good too. If you have nothing, show nothing.
 
I disagree to show fake stuff. This is not working since a long time.
When has it negatively impacted console sales? For launch, launch titles are kinda sucky and not very next-gen. Showing the real stuff clearly isn't a great idea as demonstrated by the reaction to MS's choice to do that here. Same for PS3 - Sony's CGI renders generated a lot more excitement than MS's real games. Later on when you can show good looking games for real, do so. But marketing 101 has you big up products, and if your product ain't that great to look at, show something else entirely like a cinematic. Mobile is saturated with games that sell (generate interest) not on gameplay but on animations.
 
After seeing those tweets Az linked, disorganized is probably a better word for what happened.

They should have decoupled the AAA/mainstream games from this showcase and spent the extra time to highlight whether the game was an indie dev or a smaller house and if it's exclusive or not, etc. Maybe key features like RT, 120fps.

That would give some nice clarity and set a clear expectation these aren't your AAA titles. To randomly group them together and give no context just created confusion all around.
 
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