E3 2011 is next week and the big question is: what will the platform holders be showing during their press conferences? Yesterday, Microsoft’s VP of Corporate Communications Frank Shaw explained how the company views one of its best performing brands. Unfortunately for some gamers, that vision seems to be aiming at a wider audience than the core player Microsoft has targeted in the past.
“For the last 10 years at Microsoft, we’ve been turning up the heat on how we think about Xbox, and next week at E3 you will get a chance to see how far we’ve come,” wrote Shaw.
“Something interesting has happened in the last few years. While people are still playing a ton of video games, 40 percent of all Xbox activity now is non-game. Put another way, we’re seeing an average of 30 hours of video consumption per month per Xbox, a number that is growing fast. And people are expecting more – more options, more games, more videos, more entertainment,” he continued, to the increasing horror of core gamers.
Shaw defines an Xbox that Microsoft has always wanted. The home entertainment set-top box. The center of the living room and the device that friends and family gravitate toward.
“The vision for Xbox is straightforward: All of the entertainment you want. With the people you care about. Made easy. That is why you’ve seen us invest in partnerships with ESPN, Netflix and Hulu. That is why we’ve baked social directly into the experience with Xbox LIVE – connecting gamers, friends and families across the globe,” he added. “That is why you’ll see Xbox marketed more as an entertainment brand this year. And that is why we’re investing so much in Natural User Interface technologies (speech, touch, gestures) to make the entertainment experience that much easier—and more fun. With Kinect, we’ve made NUI real for millions of people, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible.”
“Next Monday at E3 in Los Angeles, the Xbox home entertainment pot will be boiling over during a 90-minute event that you can view live on Spike TV, Xbox.com or on the Microsoft News Center. We’re continuing to deliver mind-blowing gaming experiences, and we are turning up the heat on a whole new era of home entertainment,” Shaw closed.
It’s interesting to see Microsoft move towards the blue ocean, as Nintendo moves back towards the core gamer. Kinect has been a boon for the company in a way that Sony’s Move peripheral has not. How do you feel about the slow shift in Microsoft strategy?
