It comes from surveys into play and consumption habits. So not only what people buy, but when they buy, who they play with, what their triggers are for playing, their attitudes toward different brands, etc. The idea is to develop a understanding of what strategies can be used to reach different market segments.
A hardcore gamer would preorder Assassin’s Creed IV, get it the first day its released, play through it over a weekend, and post about it on Facebook.
A dude-bro gamer would notice it in the store a month after launch. Play it on and off for a few weeks and give the disk to a friend.
They both own the same game, but their triggers for purchasing it and playing it are different.
Hamster, would you happen to have a link to such research? Not that I disbelieve what you say but I’d like to know more about it.
I’ve often heard that the average gamer is in his 30s. Is this so? I’m thinking that the surveys which show the average gamer in his 30s are likely highly self-selecting surveys.
How important is the grade school and middle school segment? High school segment? A lot of the biggest selling games are simple, repetitive and shiny and that’s what kids tend to go for. Many of the AAA games are being “adult & edgy” in exactly the sort of superficial way that kids try to be adult & edgy.
This is a tough argument to make when the PS4 is easily the more powerful system. Whatever Microsoft’s vision for the Xbox may be, people buy these things to play games. Giving up some of your already limited processing power (compared with the PS4) so you can instantly switch between TV and games strikes me as a foolish trade off. Hell, I can already do that with the input button on my remote. And my desire to watch TV and play a game at the exact same time is pretty close to nonexistent. Maybe there really is a big market for this, but if so I’m not a part of that market. As for Kinect, I think motion controls are played out for everything short of party/ dance games, but I guess I’m willing to be proven wrong if they can show something that really wows me.
I wish they had made some different choices. I really like my 360 and simple consumer inertia would have led me to stick with the Xbox brand had everything else been equal, or even close to equal.
Unfortunately it’s all internal Sony market research, so there’s no way I can share it. I’m only giving the vaguest outline of the specifics.
I hadn’t intended to get into an argument over what constitutes “hardcore”. The only point I was trying to make was that fanboys wield power out of proportion to their numbers because they tend to be early adopters and opinion makers.
I believe it, but the notion of designing for “the average gamer” isn’t very useful. There are a variety of different ways that people play, and you can’t make them happy by targeting the average. You need different products and features that appeal to different niches.
For example, one thing that saved the PS3 was the Blu-Ray player. It was a really nice selling point for non-gamers. “I’m not just getting a system for my teenage son to use … I can watch movies on it too!” I’m sure this was part of the thinking behind Microsoft’s “TV, TV, TV, TV, TEEVEEEEEEE … !” rollout.
Huge, but Nintendo has that sewn up tight.
Guys in their teens and twenties tend to like similar games. The problem with directly targeting an older more adult demographic is that while they still play, they tend not to have as much free time, so they don’t buy as many games.
I’m literally about the easiest person in the world to sell an X1 to: I use a lot of Microsoft ecosystem products including Windows Phone and Xbox Music Pass, I have a particular distaste for Sony and their products, and I’m chomping at the bit for a next gen experience.
MS’s complete mishandling of this whole thing is really making me consider holding off on consoles and building a decent gaming / HTPC and wait for things to shake out.
I really, really like my 360, but one of the reasons is due to the quality indie titles they helped foster like Braid and Fez. It seems like they’ve completely failed to foster these relationships and have downright alienated a lot of talent.
They’re completely failing to communicate a vision for the new system. And, while I like the look of several exclusives and am very intrigued by the new Kinect, spending $500-600 to build my PC into a modern-ish, multipurpose system is a lot easier to justify.
Hmmm, that’s interesting. It looks like the XB1 won’t connect to 802.11b or 802.11g wi-fi networks and they’re not making a big noise about it. When I did a wi-fi channel search this morning at home I could detect 13 802.11g network broadcasters but only one 802.11n (mine).
Does anyone know just how relatively common each of these are?
Sony’s published stats are pretty clear about having 802.11 b/g/n - which is usually the way it’s written - but the 360 quotes only “3 802.11 n antennas” and “802.11n wireless” which will allow connections for “compatible devices”. I can’t find any reference to backward compatibility there.
I dunno, this just reads like different ways of writing basically the same stuff; I think they’d actually have to break 802.11n standards to not be backwards compatible, but I could be wrong. Even if I am, it would basically require extra work on their part to not be compatible, and for absolutely no gain.
My money is on “someone just wrote it down that way”.
I would wager this is because they’re trying to be clear they have N compatibility, and don’t want people to see B/G/N as a hybrid mode. I’d like to think this would be paranoid on their part, but I’ve talked to too many people who think the “4G LTE” indicator on their phone means 4G Lite and want to know why they don’t get real 4G.
I cannot, cannot imagine it won’t connect to B/G networks. G is still extremely common, and most people don’t know the difference. And, in fact, many people don’t have a choice: a LOT of people get their wifi through ISP-provided modem/routers. Many of which are still G.
I just had a thought: As we know, Microsoft is trying to make Xbox One into the one media device that will do everything; it will allow TV, games, movies, music, TV, calling, TV, internet and TV and any other number of things. MS wants to make it the one device you use for everything without needing anything else. It will be the box that can potentially contain anything; the indeterminate box; The “X” box.
Seems like they’ve had this plan for at least a decade. They’re not going to give up on making the Xbox the Windows OS of media. Will they have another go next generation, which could be in the early 2020s or will they still try to go for it in this generation?
I would assume that depends entirely on how well the Xbox One sells. The Xbox 360 is already pretty close to their “one living room box” vision for the Xbox One, so I’m not sure what else they’ll have to do to “go for it” with the One.
But if the One sells well, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have an Xbox Two/Four.
In breaking new, Don Mattrick, the head of XBox, has just left Microsoft to become the CEO of Zynga. Microsoft has not made any announcements as to his replacement, leading to speculation that Steve Ballmer himself will temporarily step in to run XBox.
Rumor has it Mattrick has been talking to Zynga for months. Does anybody think he tanked the Xbox One announcement because he already had one foot out the door?