From: "Rich Gauszka" 


http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/06/microsoft_xbox_.html

Key Xbox 360 execs, from vice president Peter Moore on down, have made some
revealing statements to Bloomberg today about the company's newfound desire
to capture the casual market with price cuts and family-oriented innovative
software.

If we don't make that move, make it early and expand our demographic, we
will wind up in the same place as with Xbox 1, a solid business with 25
million people. What I need is a solid business with 90 million people. --
Peter Moore

When mom walks into the store and sees she can get a [Wii] with a game for
$250, she sees it as a $300 value. They've done a good job. -- David
Hufford, director of Xbox product management

When mom walks into the store and sees she can get a [Wii] with a game for
$250, she sees it as a $300 value. They've done a good job. -- David
Hufford, director of Xbox product management

This message coming from these three men is fascinating, considering that
if Microsoft wanted to be pigeonholed as a hard-core machine they would
have done exactly what they did over the last few years. Selling a game
console to mom because it's a good deal is one thing. Selling game consoles
to mom because she wants to play it is a new one, and it's because of the
Wii's strategy, which was a concerted effort from all sides to attract new
players. Xbox 360 is an expensive, complicated, high-end piece of machinery
aimed at technophiles and people who like shooting things.

It wasn't a bad plan, really, until Wii came along.

That's why one of the things emphasized in this piece (and it's what's
getting mentioned as this piece gets linked about today) is the possibility
of a price cut. In the article, Hufford mentions that $199 is the
"sweet spot." But even at the "sweet spot," what are
you going to do when the content's not there? Viva Pinata tanked. The more
time goes by without a family-friendly lineup, the less likely it seems --
especially with Nintendo absolutely gobbling up that market while Microsoft
sleeps.

Roger Ehrenberg of Monitor 110 has some solid analysis on this piece this
morning, pointing out that in his opinion, Microsoft has just woken up to
the realization that they have been wrong, and that it should be very
interesting to watch what they do now:\

When you've got your Head of Interactive Entertainment, the Director of
Xbox Global Platform Marketing and a Director of Xbox Product Management
all publicly saying that they've got to crack the mass market and that
lower price points are attractive, does this indicate a seismic strategic
shift? I'd say so.

Only question is, is it too late? For all the talk about how the console
wars are a "marathon, not a sprint" (this is usually gasped by
the tired guy in last place with a bum knee), a whole heck of a lot gets
decided in the first year. After building their HD Era, M-rated,
Live-enabled strategy around the hardest of the hardcore, can they take
that same machine and sell it to Grandma?cc

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5