How can MS do better in Europe?

[macabre]

It really is annoyingly loud, but the quality is supposedly fixed.

...

The very first pictures of opened 360 vs. PS3 internals showed a huge difference in build quality.
Maybe they fixed some of the most severe problems and now they die a month later...but you get what you pay for (in the case of the PS3 you get actually more though).

 

[Laa-Yosh]

You don't need to build a super high quality console that's an excellence in design - you want to make it cheap and last for just about 4-6 years.
MS has certainly underdone it at first and are still playing catching up; but Sony's made a mistake to by overdoing it, resulting in a huge loss on hardware.

 

[fearsomepirate]

:
Software:
Put Rare to better use

After Perfect Dark Zero, we need to all acknowledge that the Rare of the 90's is long gone.

 

[Silent]

Yeah, like the PS3 isn't a ten times bigger mess...

Here in Europe we only have 2 versions PS3 versions to choose from? That if you can find the 60Gb model.

When I walked in the mediamarkt yesterday they had

* xbox 360 elite
* xbox 360 premium (GOW pack, Halo 3 pack, ... )
* xbox 360 core
* xbox 360 arcade

As a clueless consumer which one do they need to buy ?

It's offcourse because they have still allot of older unsold units but still... .

 

[joker454]

-teenage cheap Design (box+PSu, and GUI)

Umm, whats wrong with the 360 gui? The xmb looks stone age in comparison. I always though they just ran out of time and ported the psp gui to ps3. I honestly never thought they would have stuck with that, it looks incredibly primitive. To me anyways. I mean seriously, xmb is acceptable in 2008? I guess I just don't get it.

Just try to imagine how it would fare without that really good GPU .

As it shockingly turns out, a good gpu is quite important for video games. Who would have thunk it? Obviously the bad build quality breakdowns is bad, but aside from that i think microsoft got their priorities perfectly correct this gen.

As far as selling in Europe, lets try something a bit more controversial and hopefully not offend anyone. I grew up and spent most of my life in Montreal, which is heavily European, people of all flavors. They loved Canadians like me. But, my impression most of my life there with regards to anything American varies from mistrust at best, to pure hate at worst. It varies of course, like it seemed people from the UK were more accepting. But from places like France, Germany, etc, the amount of hate and/or mistrust was severe.

So...take an American made console, and brand it with another well hated company like Microsoft, and try to sell it in Europe. I'm personally amazed, again given the Europeans I lived and grew up with, that it has sold this well there. The only thing I can think of is that there was no other viable option so they bought 360's. Now that PS3 is getting games I figure 360 will fall by the wayside.

Again to be clear, I'm just describing my observations while growing up and living in a very multi cultural city, so no offense is intended. Your experience may very well totally differ. But given what I've seen and heard, I can't help but think that being American made and Microsoft branded is hurting 360 very badly in Europe.

 

[zed]

saw this today

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17292

Who's Winning The War?

Scheisel asked if Microsoft feels it's failed at its stated goal of being "number one," since by unit sales, the Wii holds that title handily. But Kim thinks it's too early to call -- and that unit sales are too simple a way to measure success.

MS (as well as sony/nintendo aim to be number 1) how can they not want to? as shifty geezer alludes to the executives are not defeatist,
im wondering if part of the problem was the often spoken by MS executives quote
'whoever sells 10million first wins the console race'

ie as long as we get to 10million first the rest will come naturally cause of the momentum/marketshare

yes they got to 10million first by comprising things, but it increasingly looks like theyre destined to be 3rd.

 

[Vic]

As far as selling in Europe, lets try something a bit more controversial and hopefully not offend anyone. I grew up and spent most of my life in Montreal, which is heavily European, people of all flavors. They loved Canadians like me. But, my impression most of my life there with regards to anything American varies from mistrust at best, to pure hate at worst. It varies of course, like it seemed people from the UK were more accepting. But from places like France, Germany, etc, the amount of hate and/or mistrust was severe.

So...take an American made console, and brand it with another well hated company like Microsoft, and try to sell it in Europe. I'm personally amazed, again given the Europeans I lived and grew up with, that it has sold this well there. The only thing I can think of is that there was no other viable option so they bought 360's. Now that PS3 is getting games I figure 360 will fall by the wayside.

Much of the dislike I notice is not simply because MS is American. Much of it comes because many people feel MS releases beta versions of its OS's on the public; they feel that MS is lazy and greedy with regards to other parts of its business. Controversial admittedly. This in turn has hit MS's reputation. Thats why so many people I know will only pirate Windows software. Seems like its less of a problem for MS in the US.

 

[iceberg187]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=32873

D.I.C.E. 08: Europe will be Xbox 360 battleground, says Kim

 

[PARANOiA]

After Perfect Dark Zero, we need to all acknowledge that the Rare of the 90's is long gone.

Oh please. Kameo was a good-to-great title with stunning graphics, and Viva Pinata is unlike most other games, and to many a GOTY '06 contender. Both are very worthy of purchase. Singling out one game and saying the talent of the dev is "long gone" is absurd.

 

[zed]

Again to be clear, I'm just describing my observations while growing up and living in a very multi cultural city, so no offense is intended. Your experience may very well totally differ. But given what I've seen and heard, I can't help but think that being American made and Microsoft branded is hurting 360 very badly in Europe.

now speaking as a person who has actually lived in europe for many years ild call bollux, sure theres perhaps the odd person (in the more intellectual circles that fits this mould (prolly running windows on their home pc though), anyways to speak another stereotype the lesser educated are the biggest videogame players )
now if this was the case, then the american films/music (which are far far more 'american' than a piece of plastic, with the speaking with american accents, driving the chevys, going to the malls, you know, small things like that ) wouldnt top the boxoffice/charts over there, which they do routinely

dont we hear the same arguments about why the xbox360 not suceeding in japan?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I concur. American politics are hated, and stereotypes may be disliked (and that goes for every foreign stereotype!) but the culture has wide acceptance in the media - there isn't a flat-out boycott of American products. American software isn't boycotted, so why would American hardware be?

I think the problem isn't as simple as Americaphobia, a good product with fantastic appeal that's being snubbed just because of where it came from. The problem IMO is both the Microsoft influence (though as someone mentioned, how many consumers associate XB with MS? I've no idea) and the fact that the subtle decisions don't work well over here. Like the interface. Joker loves it and dislikes XMB. I've not met anyone in Bally-Old-Blighty who prefers the blade interface, seeing the XMB as swisher and friendlier. There are some differences in design preference between nations, particularly from US to Europe, and it may be that what passed the focus-group as a great design wouldn't have been so successful with a more international bunch of testers? Overall though, i think the problem can't be pinned to the nation producing the XB. The MS brand maybe, but also maybe the design in a way the designers can't see which confuses them? Though having said that, how many buyers in store actually know or care about the interface? I suppse as the life-cycle progresses, more of the consumer base is exposed to experience with the different machines and gets to see. Once you've seen and heard an XB360 and PS3, you'll have an impression of which you prefer that no amount of marketing can change.

 

[_phil_]

Yeah, like the PS3 isn't a ten times bigger mess...

Only if you take the wrong perspective.
Consider the Hdd.
Core features are much more consistent on sony side.it's broken on the 360.

as for the GUI ,JOKER ,i feel and think the exact countrary.

But i come from desgin schools,this can be seen as a strong bias...

 

[Thowllly]

Umm, whats wrong with the 360 gui? The xmb looks stone age in comparison. I always though they just ran out of time and ported the psp gui to ps3. I honestly never thought they would have stuck with that, it looks incredibly primitive. To me anyways. I mean seriously, xmb is acceptable in 2008? I guess I just don't get it.

To me the 360 gui looks old fashioned and... noisy? glaring? cluttered? I don't know. XMB looks neat, clean, sleak and minimalist. To me.

As far as selling in Europe...

This might be a bit "me too", but that doesn't match my personal experience at all. And other products sell very well, (music, movies, mcdonalds, coca-cola...) despite everybody knowing perfectly well they're american.

Maybe the xbox360 sells better in the US than elsewhere because it's american?

 

[Arwin]

Umm, whats wrong with the 360 gui? The xmb looks stone age in comparison. I always though they just ran out of time and ported the psp gui to ps3. I honestly never thought they would have stuck with that, it looks incredibly primitive. To me anyways. I mean seriously, xmb is acceptable in 2008? I guess I just don't get it.

Well, I guess it's a matter of taste, but for me it's the Xbox Dashboard that looks horribly old-fashioned. And it's not intuitive in the least. It is very telling that their most significant change in the GUI recently was adding a XMB style navigation menu. I can tell by the way different people react to it (as well as from reading gui design books) that the XMB really is much more intuitive. It's close to what I think is perfect, and I wish Windows worked like that. I've started designing a system myself that was close to this in structure.

The only thing I'm missing now is one or two details - being able to structure your files more in folders if you want to, and the odd place where you have to use a sixaxis button, where otherwise you can do literally everything in the XMB with the mouse, the keyboard, the sixaxis, your guitar hero controller, or whatever.

So...take an American made console, and brand it with another well hated company like Microsoft, and try to sell it in Europe. I'm personally amazed, again given the Europeans I lived and grew up with, that it has sold this well there. The only thing I can think of is that there was no other viable option so they bought 360's. Now that PS3 is getting games I figure 360 will fall by the wayside.

Hate for the US is not really an issue. It's not like we don't buy FIFA08 en masse or anything. No, by far the two most important regional distinctions are that the Xbox has been better for the US in the past (also by the way because the PS2 wasn't as well supported in the US as in Europe in terms of games like Buzz, Singstar and so on, which are all very popular here, as in 4 Singstar titles in the top 10 of some countries), and the 360 is better for the US audience now with for instance a lot of video download services all of which are totally absent in Europe.

I can't help but think that being American made and Microsoft branded is hurting 360 very badly in Europe.

A US branded product would have fared worse against an equal Dutch product in the Netherlands (Philips does better than average here typically) but I think it is more that a US product does better against an equal Japanese product in the US (taking away all actual pros and cons) than the other way around.

There are lots of different things at play here, even ones that aren't as obvious, such as the fact that electronics are more expensive here in general and the uptake of new technologies starts off slower. But we also just like different kinds of games. You like Football, we like Soccer, you like FPS more than we do, we like racing more than you do. And apparently we like EyeToy, Karaoke and Quiz games better than you do, but we can't tell for certain because SCEA for whatever reason never seemed to have bothered with Singstar and Buzz in the US until very recently.

 

[_xxx_]

What's the solution for MS? How can they do better?

Stop stuffing the über-expensive, flawed bug collections called Windows and Orifi... err, Office down our sore throats. Then and only then we might stop being that cautious about buying their products. Their problems have nothing to do with the XBox itself, it's the opposite - XBox suffers because of the rest of their crap.

 

[Tap In]

Stop stuffing the über-expensive, flawed bug collections called Windows and Orifi... err, Office down our sore throats. Then and only then we might stop being that cautious about buying their products. Their problems have nothing to do with the XBox itself, it's the opposite - XBox suffers because of the rest of their crap.

confirms my answer to the question.

Global hatred of MS as a company, very little to do with the game system.

 

[liolio]

Oh please. Kameo was a good-to-great title with stunning graphics, and Viva Pinata is unlike most other games, and to many a GOTY '06 contender. Both are very worthy of purchase. Singling out one game and saying the talent of the dev is "long gone" is absurd.

Especially if we consider the ridiculous amount of time they were allowed to spend on the final hardware before this two games were released! (kameo and perfect dark).

 

[Hazuki Ryu]

I think some hate for the US is involved actually I think most French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese people actually hate the american's.

You only need to go to xbox live to see how much people from those regions deslike americans, I'm Portuguese and I don't have anything against american people in particular I actually have been in the US many times for extended periuds of time, but i know what people are like here in europe.

This one time i was playing on XBL Gears of War and since i bought my xbox in the us i just had it set to US I was playing with 2 portuguese people on my team and an american, and the portuguese guys (that were grown man) were spending the time stealing weapons from me and the other guy and making fun of us in portuguese, till i told the to go **** then selfs in portuguese.

That happens with Italians, French, German, Spanish etc.

Now i don't think thats the only reason why MS isn't doing better here in Europe.
I think there's a lot of ignorace when it comes to Hardware capabilitys, people here just think Ps3 is that graphics HD1080p monster who's power is yet to be unlished, even if its not.

What MS needs to do is to be clear about how good their hardware really is in terms of performance and show of that it can compete or beat ps3, I think more console like experiences need to come to xbox 360 and by that i mean less FPS, TPS, and more RPG more Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden like games, More Tomb Raider like games more good fighting games, Racing games and then they need to Show it to the people because most people dont know what to look for.

Edit: And they need to make the public know that Xbox 360 it's not a console to play halo 3 only it's got a lot of good games to play they also need to make forza name bigger maybe release forza 3 or just keep updating this one.

 

[zed]

of course to take the argument to its logical conclusion,
if the xbox360 somehow sells the least of the 3 at the end of the cycle in the US (theyre sitting in first place at the moment but i assume will get overtaken by the wii this year some time ~august perhaps )....

is americans are filled with selfloathing + the only way for the xbox720 to succeed in the US is to have it designed + made by a canadian company, after all everyone likes the canadians dont they?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They should have the Swiss make it - no-one dislikes the Swiss