Hmm…
Couldn’t have summed it up better myself Spencer…
> “Whether it’s always-on, used games, whatever the feature was, we lost the trust in them that they were at the centre of our decision-making process,” Spencer recounts. “Were we building a product for us, or were we building a product for the gamers? And as soon as that question came into people’s minds and they looked at anything, whether it was the power of our box, our launch line-up, microtransactions, any of the features that you talked about, what you find is very quickly you lose the benefit of the doubt. You lose your customer’s assumption that the reason you’re building your product is to delight them and not just build a better and more maybe manipulative product.”
Why is anybody still surprised when a business makes a business decision for business reasons that is in the interests of the business? Why would anyone ever assume that a company is operating with its customer’s interests as its primary focus? Publicly held companies answer first to shareholders or management, depending on the nature and health of the company, and to customers, typically, as a distant third in the line up. That doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the customer, it just means that the customer is primarily a revenue stream, and usually one which will tolerate some push and pull without having a serious effect on the bottom line, especially in a closed market like console gaming. Is anyone really delusional enough to think that Sony is any different? They may have better PR, and they certainly had the benefit of being able to re-act instead of taking any initiative on those issues, but that hardly qualifies them as altruistic. Just as an example, was Sony really acting in the best interests of its customers when they allowed hackers to steal the personal information of millions of PSN users? Just a thought.
I wonder how differently E3 would have played out, had Sony taken to the stage first instead of Microsoft. Would Microsoft have quickly changed policies or would we have ended up with with the always-on types features that both companies were initialy lookng at?
You’re right recon, I’m not surprised at all and Spencer said it himself…
“You lose your customer’s assumption that the reason you’re building your product is to delight them and not just build a better and more maybe manipulative product.”
Note his use of the word “assumption”.
I don’t think anyone here really thinks that Microsoft isn’t in the business to make money but that not a defense for poor service. I’ve heard your straw argument for years and it doesn’t hold water when it comes to running a business and keeping your customers (that revenue stream you spoke of) happy. No wonder Sony is now leading the way.
This is a mistake that changed the future of console gaming. Welcome to 2nd place Microsoft. Hope your revenue stream, I mean gamers that are left have fun.