Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2006 > December > 12 > Entry
Next move, Xbox 360
All right, Microsoft. You weathered the holiday crush of retail attention paid on your rivals for console supremacy, Nintendo and Sony. You introduced a new service for people to download movies and TV shows (a few in high-def, even!). Sure, the pricing is pretty high considering they’re just rentals and you weren’t able to keep up with network demand. But it’s a step, at least.
Here’s what you can do to steal back some thunder from Sony and Nintendo:
- Lower the prices for video downloads. Sure, we understand that high-definition content will cost more than standard-def, but the prices on the Xbox Live store still seem too high for items that users are merely renting and not storing permanently on their hard drives.
- Offer up a bigger hard drive. The standard 20-gigabyte hard drive that comes with the Xbox 360 is simply too small. With many game demos weighing it at more than a gigabyte and more offerings for video downloads made available (high-def videos are at least four or five gigs), that hard drive gets cramped awfully fast. We need at least a 60-gigger at a reasonable price. ($99 sounds about right for something in the 60-100 gigabyte range.)
- Lower the price of the official network adapter. $100 is an absolutely ridiculous price for what is essentially just a USB WiFi adapter. The PS3 premium edition and the Wii both have WiFi built in. Future versions of the 360 should include that, too, but for current users, the network adapter is simply priced too high. It shouldn’t cost more than $50.
- More game variety. The 360 has great action and shooter games like “Gears of War”. “Halo 3” and “Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2” are on deck for next year. Take a page out of Nintendo’s book and offer up more family-friendly games like “Viva Piñata” or games like the DS’s oddball “Elite Beat Agents.” “Guitar Hero II” is coming soon to the 360, and that’s good news. Keep going in that direction.
- Better Xbox Live Arcade games. “Geometry Wars Evolved” was brilliant, but after that, the quality of XBLA games dropped dramatically. Except for “Uno,” there haven’t been any other must-own Arcade titles and the retro games like “Time Pilot” and “Frogger” seemed like a good idea at the time, but got stale quickly. Get that “GWE” sequel out, stat!
- Play to your strengths. Stop trying to one-up the PS3 on hardware. The 360 doesn’t have an HDMI output and no matter how good the add-on HD-DVD drive may be, it’s still no substitute for the PS3’s built-in Blu-Ray drive. Microsoft’s best move this holiday season was to let Sony stumble with its hardware shortages and balk-worth price point.
- Don’t forget the fun. The 360 should be a fun machine to play. If Nintendo’s Wii does nothing else, it should at least remind game designers and hardware makers that games are supposed to be a joy to play. That means not everyone wants to play needlessly complicated games that are impossible to pick up and play. That principle should go into all game and hardware design decisions.
- Make Xbox Live free. $50 a year doesn’t seem like much, but given that Nintendo and Sony’s online services are free, it’s a mark in their favor. Never mind that Live is a much better services. For tightwad gamers, that $50 is still a barrier to purchasing a system. Do away with the subscription fee and focus on making microtransactions for content that players want make up the difference.
- Price break. A $50 price break wouldn’t hurt, either, for the premium system. Just sayin’. I know you lose money on every system you sell, but most gamers will use that $50 they save to buy an extra game. (Or just tell yourselves that to make it sting a little less.)
Good luck, Xbox 360. Right now, you’re still my console of choice. But you can’t stay complacent or the Wii and the PS3 are going to overtake you next year.
Permalink | | Categories: Shopping, Videogames
