8 Ways Microsoft Saved The Xbox One With Savvy Marketing
6. Unshackling Kinect
Marketing objective: Competitive pricing.
You know how many times Kinect was mentioned at E3 2014? It was never mentioned, and I didn’t hear many people complaining about that.
The problem with Kinect, beyond the creepy ‘Big Brother is watching you’ surveillance, is that Microsoft made it mandatory. The Xbox just wouldn’t run without it, which was a seriously strange move aimed more at advertisers than gamers.
Spreading yourself a little thin there, huh, Microsoft?
See, in the marketing world, it’s better to do one thing really well, rather than doing lots of things poorly. That way, you actually make money. Think Google (the ultimate search engine), Coca Cola (refreshing soft drinks) and Facebook (connecting people). Kinect muddied those waters.
What was it for? Who was it for? Why didn’t it work properly most of the time? It was little more than an attempt to cash-in on Nintendo’s Wii, rather than a disruptive technology that would change the habits of gamers more at home with controllers.
Goofy, innovative gaming is the one thing that Nintendo does better than any other console maker; this is not natural Microsoft territory.
Worse still, Kinect’s inclusion bumped the console’s price up too. No brainer, it had to go if Microsoft were to compete with a console that cost $100 less than the Xbox One.