Gaming Signal: Has MS Dropped The Ball On The Xbox 360 ?

Has MS Dropped The Ball On The Xbox 360 ?

Seth Jayson of Motley Fool thinks so, but not because of the games. He basically says that MS has missed a golden opportunity to market the 360 to non-gamers this Christmas season and, instead, have let the quantity issues of the PS3 and Wii drive sales.

Seth's interest in the 360 isn't as a game console. He's looking at it from a media hub perspective. He is impressed with how easy it is to stream music and video to a 360, watch your digital photos onscreen, and to rent and download movies and TV shows. Its so easy, even his wife could figure it out with no problems.

So what do you think? Could MS expand its 360 base by making a big marketing splash touting the non-gaming features? Granted, most of these features have only become available in the last few months, but MS could have had some marketing muscle ready to go. I do think they could push the 360 to non-hardcore gamers more. What's going to make them more money: Zune or a 360? Especially with all the games/accessories a 360 can potentially upsell.

I will take issue with the TV/Movie downloads. Its a good idea, but the prices aren't really that great, HD content costs more than its SD counterparts, and the renting model isn't really that compelling versus Netflix. And the time involved with actually download the content, especially HD, is quite long. So, right now, the video portion of the 360's capabilities doesn't really appeal to me. However, it is easy to download and watch a show on the 360. Once broadband becomes faster, I can see the 360 being ready to take advantage of this right away.

And after looking at how easy it is to setup music sharing on a non-MCE Windows box, I will definitely do this at home, if for no other reason than to save space on my 360's hard drive!

So the question is, is the 360 a compelling platform for non-gaming?

Straight out of the box? No, not very compelling. But once you add something like TVersity or 360transcode then things get better quickly.

Everything available is "hacked" though, nothing official from MS, which really sucks. It's really sad to see organizations like the FCC and the RIAA/MPAA in the way of some great consumer electronics convergence.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Dear FCC/RIAA/MPAA,
Die in a fire.
That is all.

Sincerely,
Trent... arrrrr!

Posted by Trent on Wednesday December 06, 2006 at 4:25 PM

I concur about the out of the box statement, but still I don't see it as a media hub in my case either. The simple fact that it requires additional resources for storing the "media". I do understand that but most folks don't have a central media server in their homes (I know Trent does), and to be truly successful - the device must have more internal storage. Look at the TIVOs and other media recorders and you will see a trend of larger drives for additional storage...

I guess I see the media elements as a bonus to help offset the costs, but it is a game console first and foremost...

Posted by Tim on Thursday December 07, 2006 at 1:18 PM

I somewhat agree with you there Scott, but the Windows Media Center PC is still a mess from pretty much ANY vendor. "Too many cooks in the kitchen" seems to be the biggest problem along with "ValueADD" software pre-loaded on to the PC's. They are just crap units.

People want flexibility with their PC based DVR's and WMCE is just not very flexible.

Don't even get me going on all the DRM....

I have a WMCE box I built myself, but it hardly gets used. Not with all of the convergence to 360s in the process of being added (some legaly, some not) to other DVR software like Myth TV and Snapstream. The illegal offerings are just better. Not in a "doodz look I haxored the latest HArry Potter to my PC!! LOLZ!! RTFB!!!" kind of way. I'm speaking more about the ability to actually CHOOSE the codec of your choice for backup, edit commercials out automatically (or not!), change the aspect ratio, truly placeshift viewing to another CE device.

All of those things are missing from WMCE except for placeshifting, and as far as I know, the only placeshifting you can do with WMCE is too watch it on the 360, not actually "shift" it, just "stream" it.

MS needs to shake the FCC and M/R-IAA off their backs to become successful with WMCE I fear. Most (not all though) of the things I listed above are not DMCA violations, they are just features that almost every DVR already has EXCEPT for WMCE. MS is seeking approval where no approval is needed and its hurting them in the pocket book.

Posted by Trent on Monday December 11, 2006 at 3:43 PM

MS should act like they do with their obviously "cavalier" operating systems they make. Add features first, legal or not, and fight it out in court later. Seems to have worked for Windows ubiquity. Why are they gunshy on WMCE and not Windows? Fear my friends... fear of the content owner.

Is it because there is no MPAA/RIAA for operating systems? If so then I submit that the problem is the MPAA/RIAA and they need to have their expectations set correctly by their PAYING CUSTOMERS. Not some loose organization of industry fat cats and "paid stooge" lobbyists.

But I'm not bitter!!!

Posted by Trent on Monday December 11, 2006 at 3:54 PM