"Oh, and those fancy TV functions that are so integral to the system?" how about the Skype function? My smart tv already does that! It's not a next gen gaming platform, it's a money pit. Drop your money into it and.... well nothing. GOOD TIMES!
Yah, but, like I said, you aren't the target market. Or at least, not the PRIMARY target market. Not anymore. That's the thing that I think gamers are really reacting to: MS isn't really selling to them anymore.
Well, tell your buddy to tell his bosses that they ****ed it up. You don't announce hardware by completely avoiding discussion about its primary function.
Who says they DIDN'T announce and discuss its primary function? Again, I think this is the real issue: the Xbox One is not a gaming platform. It's a multimedia platform that happens to be able to do games, too. It's Microsoft's version of the Roku and AppleTV, and it does more than them. THAT'S who MS is competing with now. And it's the market for those things that MS wants.
Gamers are a secondary concern, it seems.
If Microsoft is not in full damage-control mode right now, then they obviously don't acknowledge, or even care, about what their prospective customers are thinking about their product. That is NOT how you market something. Because all people are talking about right now is how much their product sucks.. they have already caused possibly irreparable damage to the system's reputation, long before it even launches.
To gamers? Sure. To people who want a multimedia platform that can also play games? Probably this is great news.
E3 isn't going to be a "make or break" scenario for them.. I don't think there's a "make" left for them. The absolute best they can hope for at this point is to come up even with Sony, to show enough awesome gameplay at E3 that will make people think the system is at least on par with their competitor. But that itself is going to be a problem, because the PS4 is more powerful, and by a not-insignificant amount. And Sony knows it. All Microsoft has to do is stick with the guns they've used in the last few years... they can't reasonably show that the system itself is better for gaming, so they're going to have to stick with how it's different from its competitors, by doing what they've been doing... concentrating on Kinect. If that happens, this console war is over before it even begins. And the hilarious part is that MS won't understand why.
You assume they're actually fighting the console war, though.
I don't think they are. I think they're saying they don't CARE about the console war. They care about the multimedia streaming war. Gaming is an additional feature, NOT the centerpiece.
I agree with you that they're basically giving up the fight against Sony for pure gaming consoles that maybe can also do some other ancillary functions. But I don't really think that's what MS is gunning for. I think they're positioning themselves along the lines of Amazon and Apple. I think they want to be general entertainment content distributors via streaming services. I think they want to set their hardware platform up as a place where you, as a content developer, can deliver a product that will not only reach people in their homes via the Xbox One, but in their pockets via Win8 Phone, and their laptops and tablets via Win8. It'll still be able to do gaming, but the gaming isn't the sole focus.
From what it sounds like, MS is thinking 20 years down the road. Sony is thinking 15 years in the past. Sony is still focusing on how to get you the biggest, baddest, toughest, most system-stressing games. MS is focusing on how to become the next Comcast and Verizon, all rolled into one. This device is their opening shot in THAT war.
