Searching for a new Halo

Microsoft needs a new Halo. The old Halo just won’t do it anymore. The highly-anticipated Halo 5 came out----was met with a solid but not truly spectacular 1.4 million, and XBox One was still outsold by the PS4 that week. Then the next week, it got outsold very severely by Call of Duty. And soon enough, Fallout 4 will overtake it in sales as well. To be honest, if Halo 5 sells 5 million, I will be shocked.

Halo used to be king. The franchise has six games that have sold over six million copies. Halo: Combat Evolved became the reason why the XBox survived the first couple years. Halo 2 launched with 2.4 million copies sold within the first 24 hours. Halo 3 sold a phenomenal 13 million copies, becoming the best-selling shooter in the history of gaming. On the XBox 360, the Halo franchise sold an incredible 42+ million---easily being the biggest non-Grand Theft Auto franchise in the seventh generation.

Nowadays however, the power isn’t as mighty. Even though the XBox One has sold a respectable 15 million copies to date, good enough for 28% console market share, the power of Halo has dwindled a bit. There was an awesome Halo pack that included four games with updated content, enhanced graphics, and extra movies between the installments, and this excellent deal sold a feeble 2.6 million. While this sounds like great numbers, it is nowhere near the days of when Halo 2 sold that amount in a week. And that was a decade ago, when the XBox only sold 24 million units overall. Halo has become Super Mario---sells decent, but no longer moves hardware sales like it used to. 

And when I mean another Halo, I don’t mean another shooter franchise, just any type of new IP that can move units. Sony has once again taken over the third-party market by not only having more friends, but also forking over extra money to have exclusive games. The only way the XBox even has a shot at gunning for the ever-elusive crown, it’s time to shift the focus to a new franchise.

For years the competitors searched for a Halo killer. Nowadays we have Call of Duty, Battlefield, Titanfall, and Destiny encroaching on its historical sales run. Even Splatoon has sold a shocking amount of copies and if Nintendo plays its cards right, the NX and the ninth generation will see more from this new and highly successful IP. The competition has improved, so the next Halo may not even have to be a shooter.

The options on the other hand, remain quite deep. Microsoft still has action-packed franchises like Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, and Blast Corps in its shelf. Titanfall can become bigger. Lost Planet is an unused grouping of games that can be rebooted/revived. Perhaps it’s time to conquer genres that have seen little attention: JRPGs (Could help Microsoft in Japan), adventure/action hybrids (a competition to Uncharted—the Sony darling). Maybe Microsoft can create the next big sandbox game, a Grand Theft Auto killer (I know, good luck).

The point is, unlike Nintendo and their bag of tricks, Microsoft is once again lacking that killer exclusive AAA franchise that can cut into Sony’s lead and even threaten its position on top. It will definitely take a lot more than just one game to defeat the PS4 and the upcoming PS5, but a game can change the entire playing field. Halo did that, as the series would solidify the idea of online gaming and provide the blueprints for doing it correctly. Wii Sports would fling the entire gaming industry into the mainstream—before they moved on to tablet/mobile gaming. In order for the XBox to become the best-seller in the market, they need that huge, huge game that will alter the fanbases. Halo can’t do it anymore, the shooter market got too cluttered. They need something else, soon.

Microsoft, meet Kojima.

So now Kojima is unemployed.



Folks, I just mentioned that one of the top developers in the entire gaming world is unemployed. His entire company is separated from the clutches of Konami. Do you know what this means?

It’s time to start courting him. Now. Immediately. Nintendo, Sony, Activision, there’s a very valuable and attractive company looking for a new place to stay.



Microsoft, I am mainly looking at you.



Now, it is an established fact that Japan and XBox do not get along, and it has been this way for three gaming generations. The XBox 360 had a dozen JRPG exclusives for the Far East market and not even that helped. Also didn’t help that the XBox lineup dwindled into the usual suspects towards the end---allowing for Sony’s PS3 to claim second place eventually. The Japanese market is still extremely important because they are still heavily invested in the gaming world.

The PSP and PSVita have been relevant mainly because of Japan. 1 out of every 4 PSPs sold were in Japan, and the Vita has sold 3.7 million copies in the same region---while only 7 million more sold in the rest of the world. The PS3 outsold the XBox 360 by 9 million copies in Japan, allowing it to make up for the dismal performance in the United States. Sony and Japan have been great friends and it has led to wonderful economic success. While the company of Sony is floundering altogether, the gaming division has remained strong thanks to the powerful Japanese support.

Enough about Sony though, this article is about Microsoft and how it should throw whatever money it can to create a partnership with Kojima Productions. The staff has an excellent track record, despite it being limited to Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders. XBox 360’s best-selling Japanese game was Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation---which couldn’t even break 250K. Guess which production company has made 8 games that sold more than 250K in Japan….

Fun Fact I am repeating from a previous article I wrote:

"Whichever system sells the most in Japan wins the generation—it has remained true since the NES sold nearly 20 million copies back in the 80s/90s. The SNES, PSX, PS2, and Nintendo Wii each outsold the competitors in the Asia market and ultimately became the big seller. "

Microsoft needs to hold hands with Kojima, and promise him plenty of money and resources and become an exclusive third-party company that will make and distribute Japan-only games. Kojima Productions consists of a very talented staff with plenty of attention to details. Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid IV are amongst the best games ever made, and their handheld iterations prove that they can deliver a lot of great content with more limited hardware. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel was a phenomenal, phenomenal Game Boy Color game that you need to play if you haven't done so already.

I am sure there are dozens of ideas swirling around Kojima’s head and I am sure each of them can deliver. I can see a Disney/Pixar-like relationship with these two—the big brother provides the financial help and marketing, and the younger brother makes the requested art. And even with Metal Gear Solid staying behind and remaining with Konami, Microsoft can help the production studio recover and move on from the ugly breakup.

This is a win-win situation from all parties involved. Microsoft gets a smaller company with a good track record, Kojima gets his freedom that was clearly disappearing during his final days with Konami. Microsoft can recover from the current disastrous performance outside the United States, and Kojima Productions can start a new chapter in its long career in gaming.

Whoever gets Kojima wins. But if there a company that would benefit the most, it would Microsoft for its lifeless-outside-western-hemisphere XBox One.

XBox One Needs to Embrace the Niche

So the Playstation 4 is off and running and Sony is doing everything absolutely right. Good lineup of games, best deal amongst the three systems, re-releasing a PS3 gem known as The Last of Us for the PS4, still releasing games on the PS3, and a diverse appeal that has allowed for them to control the European and Japanese market. Even though Microsoft still owns America, it’s honestly not that much of a gap. As of March 28th 2014, Sony owns three of the best-selling games in North America.

In the case of Microsoft, it took them a while to finally gain some momentum towards second place with the release of Titanfall, a hybrid shooter that has heavy elements of parkour. It is new, its fresh, and its approaching a million copies sold and being attached to nearly 25% of all the XBox One systems sold. In terms of success it is essentially Halo-lite, the holdover before the next Halo installment. Similar to how Quest 64 kept the N64 at bay until Ocarina of Time, Titanfall is destined to keep the Microsoft fans entertained until the next big shooter.


And this is where Microsoft needs to focus: its niche. The XBox One needs to become an action shooter system.


Taking on the PS4 directly with the same third-party games can clearly no longer work. Grand Theft Auto 5, Metal Gear Solid 5, Dark Souls II, and FIFA sell far better on Sony systems when against Microsoft. As a matter of fact, most of the third-party franchises do better on Playstation systems. Want to know what sells better on Microsoft? Call of Duty, Battlefield, Bioshock, Elder Scrolls and Fallout. There are statistics proving that action games with plenty of gunplay appeals far better to the Microsoft owners, and North American gamers in general.

So in order to even stand a chance to win the eighth generation with no Japanese appeal, the XBox One needs to create an arsenal of exclusive games that appeals to its audience to keep them happy and potentially draw in new fans interested in the niche genre that dominates the XBox brand. Standing toe to toe against PS4 won’t work, you need to separate yourself in a way the Wii separated itself from the PS3/XBox 360 battle.

You need more shooters. Embrace your niche. Its the key to survival.

The niche is what kept the Dreamcast afloat, with its entourage of excellent fighting games and excellent sorts games. The Gamecube kept pace with XBox because its niche of deadly first-party games allowed them to cover all their weaknesses. And the XBox survived mainly because of Halo and all the imitators in the early 2000s.

Microsoft, you have Titanfall now. You still have Halo. You still have the unused Perfect Dark. You have Left 4 Dead. You have Fable (although its going downhill). You still technically own the heavily unused Jet Force Gemini. Time to reload your lineup and start immersing it with more and more shooters.

Microsoft Game Studios may have absolutely no shot at matching the diversity and depth of Sony’s firat-party division (and to be honest, although they are catching up they are still leagues under Nintendo’s first-party arsenal), they can still deliver a fantastic set of games. Halo 5 needs to happen soon, Perfect Dark 3 needs a return, Left 4 Dead 4 should be in progress, Jet Force Gemini 2 might be a decade too late but still needs a revival, and some new IPs wouldn’t hurt either.

Going a little bit to the past can also help. Blast Corps is a Rareware classic that needs a sequel; Doom could also use a new installment, and let’s not forget the IPs of James Bond, Jason Bourne, Black, and Half-Life are still floating around potentially looking for good suitors.

Whatever direction Microsoft takes, it needs to separate itself from the similar lineup as the PS4, and become the more action-packed system between the two. The XBox One needs to conquer America by becoming the Movie Blockbuster Gaming System and delivering plentiful heaps of action games to combat the superior pricing and variety of the PS4. Until then, the best the XBox One can do is second place.

Microsoft's Strange Neglection of American Gamers

This one really baffles me, it really does.




Microsoft is reaching out to the United Kingdom market by offering them a choice between FIFA or Forza 5 when they preorder the Xbox One for the first day. Originally there was some confusion (that Microsoft didn’t clarify) that this was applying to gamers worldwide, not just the British. And the other confusion (Which Microsoft was also late in clarifying) is that it applied to ALL pre-orders when in actuality it applies only to day one pre-orders. Good going Microsoft PR team. Nonetheless, after several weeks and potential pre-orders with the thought of getting a game included at launch, Microsoft cleared the air by stating this was only for the U.K. region.




And now they have offered Forza 5 to U.K. gamers.


As for the Americans…well…nothing yet…if anything happens at all.............



And this my friends is why Microsoft can never quite ever have a chance to seize first place. Why on earth are you punishing the one region that has best supported you all these years?


Between the Xbox and the Xbox 360, 103 million consoles have been sold. Amongst the 103 million, 60.24 million have been sold in North America. In case you don’t want to do the math, it is 58% of all Microsoft consoles sold have been sold in the Americas. Only 30% belong to Europe. Now I know that Sony quite frankly owns the entire European and Japanese market in recent years and Microsoft wants to gain the upper edge somehow.

But why are they punishing American gamers? Why are they being shafted by not getting a free game? It is not like Europe, Japan, or Australia is the biggest gaming market now---this title still belongs to America and its neighbors. In the United States nowadays, video games make far more money than television, music, and movies. Every single winning console in each generation had control of the American market. The Sega Genesis outsold the Super Nintendo in European, South American, and Oceanic market. Guess which one between Sega and Nintendo isn’t making consoles anymore.

And guess what, the PS4 isn’t launching with a video game in the United States either, but gains the upper hand by being $100 cheaper, including its version of a camera, and promising potential backwards-compatibility---just like the Xbox One. So wouldn’t it make sense to make this offer to American gamers as well as European gamers? Wouldn’t it have made sense to announce in E3 or shortly after that you are bundling the Xbox One with Forza 5 (potentially the best-looking launch game between the two major systems) or Madden (Which would come with that stupid NFL feature that Microsoft is so proud of)? Wouldn’t it make sense to continue the momentum of outselling Sony by 15 million copies on the biggest gaming section in the world?

It is insulting and absolutely stupid to make the offer for free games to only one or two smaller regions, and exclude the one major region that requires conquering to win the war. Fun Fact: Every console and handheld that wins Japan and the United States wins the whole darn thing, and usually by a good amount. The Wii overall outsold the PS3 and the Xbox 360 in all of North America and this is after giving up the battling three years early partially thanks to an awesome but forgotten 2010 campaign (Bit.Trip.Runner, Cave Story, Mega Man 10, No More Heroes 2, NBA Jam, Red Steel 2, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions, Super Mario All-Stars, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Fragile Dreams, Goldeneye 007, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Monster Hunter Tri).


Microsoft, reward the one country that saved your original system, and strongly supported your sequel through all the good times and bad times. Give the Americans a chance to get a free game. And allow us to choose just like the Europeans.



Don’t leave US (see what I did there?) in the dust.



Otherwise, Sony and Nintendo wouldn’t mind claiming some of the American gamer fanbase from you.



Source:
VGChartz

The Justifying Price Tag of GTA V

Look at this trailer. Seriously, look at it.

This is how $60 games should look and play like.

Is the game going to be good? I have no idea. Although Vice City remains one of the greatest games I have ever played and San Andreas was a true gem in itself, GTA IV left me desiring a bit more.

But the fact of the matter is they are definitely providing enough stuff to justify the $60, which is something most video games just don't do nowadays. You can hate Rockstar all you want, but they will shell out so much detail and so much material in their games you can't laud them on lack of effort. You simply can't.



This review was from ions ago and San Andreas looks like a game that is lengthier than most of the games we see today. Your shooters are becoming shorter and shorter. Your Mario games have yet to really deliver on the gameplay hours. And let's not get even started with Zelda and your real-time action games with bazillions of hours of cutscenes. Grand Theft Auto V needs to become a success so it can usher in more games with more meat.

And this is why older franchises like Zelda, Mario, Sonic, Star Fox, Mega Man, and then your one-trick-pony genre games like your racers, and your fighting games have dropped a bit in terms of sales and success. They don't have the variety to justify the rising costs required to continue gaming. The GTA V trailer gives you multiple storylines with clearly multiple potential paths to take, three massive overworlds, the ability to play sports, drive like you are playing a racer, shoot around like its a shooter, and venture around so it feels like an urban Fable game.

We need to see more variety from more games. I want to see more variety from games. How about adding a little action and more RPG elements to Zelda? How about adding some more chores, mini-games, side quests, and gambling to Pokemon? And (I will get slack for this) adding a little more space and scope and ability to improvise to Metal Gear and to a lesser extent the Assassin's Creed games? How about adding some storylines to the racing games? The one genre evolving in this direction are the sports games, especially (especially, especially) the NBA 2K games. But more needs to be done. Call of Duty, I am definitely looking in your direction.

The system that wins this generation will be the one with the most heavily-varied games. One-Trick Pony games may have worked last gen but with the rise of small games on Facebook and tablets I don't see this trend repeating itself. So get to work you three.

$60 is a lot of money. And not too many games deserve to be priced this high. But Grand Theft Auto V? Consider me excited and willing to fork over this money in a heartbeat.

Too Little Too Late For Microsoft?

So the screaming, ranting, and raving can indeed produce results, especially in the gaming industry. Similar to what happened when Mass Effect 3's ending was too much of a downer for the general public, Microsoft decided to backtrack all their controversial changes and just become a regular ol' system that allows you to share games and purchase used games with minimal issue. Microsoft's battle against gaming pirates and Gamestop will ceasefire for at least another day. Gamers spoke up and Microsoft responded.

On one hand, Microsoft did a good job in changing and altering practically the entire system to calm the flames of anger. You don't see Nintendo doing something like this when there was backlash towards their designs of the Wii....and the 3DS....and the WiiU. So with them listening it definitely gave them some respect points.


That being said...



Microsoft, what on earth was your problem? They didn't just present us with bad news that didn't sit well with consumers--they did it in a most disgusting manner. They had a douchebag My-Way-or-the-Highway persona that not only spread around the internet faster than you would believe, but actually increased the stock of the Playstation 4. They insulted the military, didn't even consider countries with weaker internet service, and pretty much insulted anyone not in agreement with the online policy----by offering us the XBox 360.

This past month pretty much secured Microsoft's reputation as the anti-consumer company that sticks around because of its decade head-start on the competition far far back in the day. There was nothing attractive about the XBox One except for the lineup of games, which could have won it E3 if it had not been boggled with the bad taste of bad news and bad press.

And now we have the XBox One that we prefer, at a whopping $100 more than the PS4--when both are similar in power (And rumors suggest the PS4 is actually stronger). So now your system is more expensive, and its backed by a company that you aren't sure you can truly trust anymore. This XBox should be called the 180 because of the total panoramic shift in features in a span of a couple weeks. And the sadder thing is that it will take forever before the gaming industry actually learns that the DRM and mandatory online isn't around anymore. Remember how long it took us to realize the WiiU was a new system and not a mere extension?

Answering the question of the topic at hand, this is definitely too little, too late for consumers. The PS4 is riding the great momentum of the PS3 inches from handily taking 2nd place in the Seventh Generation and remaining the best-selling system amongst the big three in the past three years. As for Microsoft, a good bundle of their fans are so disappointed a good number of them have shifted sides towards Sony. After all, outside the extra shooters both game lineups are very, very similar.

Here is the final breakdown: The Playstation 4 is the XBox One except arguably more powerful, a better and a more diverse first-party lineup, a cheaper price, and its being supported by a company that had not attempted to stab you in the back multiple times within the past few months.





Microsoft, you have some major marketing and PR work to do.

The Disappearing Appeal of XBox Gaming

So are we watching the resurgence of a former champion in Sony?


Or a total collapse of another company in the gaming industry in Microsoft?

It is like the eternal sports question, is it a comeback or is it a collapse?


Sony’s return to prominence has been happening for the past couple of years, as the PS3 has cranked out a variety of gems and allowed itself to leapfrog the Xbox 360 into second place in the seventh generation market share. Although the Vita is still a mess, the PS3 has remained relevant, and the former ugly image associated with Sony is slowly drifting away.


On the other hand: Microsoft is in major trouble.


They may not even see it yet.


The 360 hasn’t come up with a major original hit in quite some time. The Halo appeal has drifted, the other major Microsoft franchises has seemingly disappeared, third-party games are beginning to do better on the PS3, and Japan is still positively avoiding the company like the plague (The 360 has already been outsold by the Vita in lifetime sales over in the Japanese gamespace). But none of this can possibly prepare you for the potential backlash of the Xbox One.



Required Online.



Think about this for a second. They want your Xbox One to be online---at least once a day or your game will experience issues. So this pretty much ruins your Xbox experience if you are overseas fighting, if you are in a cruise ship, if you are on vacation in a hotel, in an area with very poor online reception, in an area that had just been hit by a disaster, or if you had just moved to a new place and await for cable to arrive. There are dozens of other scenarios in which this new requirement would make for gaming to become an absolute chore on the new Microsoft machine, but then I would drift off-topic.


And wait…what if Microsoft’s servers went down?

What if Xbox Live got attacked?


The fact is this: Microsoft is alienating its entire audience and fanbase: hardcore and casual. Casual gamers would have absolutely no idea how to maneuver around life with the Xbox One restricting your damn game from playing if it didn’t touch the internet in 24 hours, and the hardcore most likely won’t appreciate the fact that you can’t share the games at launch, can’t re-sell the games at launch (and possibly beyond), you have to wait 30 days just to share certain content with someone else, and can’t even play Xbox 360 games in this new machine.


Gaming is supposed to be simple.
Gaming is supposed to unite people together.


United gaming is essential, which is why the SNES remains one of the best systems ever (the slew of excellent 2-player games), why the N64 survived (Became the ultimate party system until the invention of the Xbox Live), why the PS2 won the war while the Gamecube faltered (Online gaming was best here, and Nintendo didn’t embrace the internet—leading to a last-place finish), why the Nintendo Wii was at one point on pace to shatter every sales record known to man (I had pretty much declared the Wii the winner two years ago because of how freakin' big a sales lead it had) and why the Xbox 360 was able to survive in 1st/2nd for so long with the weakest 1st-party lineup (Xbox Live was wonderful in recent years).


Connectivity is what makes Microsoft’s systems—why on Earth would you damage this?

Xbox Live is usually synonymous with good online gaming. All we want is a next-generation system with good games, good third-party support, and good online capabilities. It is such a simple formula. Nintendo doesn’t follow this because they don’t have the Sony/Microsoft budget so they do a smoke-and-mirrors technique of trying to change the rules. The Playstation 3 learned that great games push great hardware sales. The Last of Us is the latest example of Sony truly digging deep into its first-party weapons to continue the positive upswing.

It is so obscenely simple. We want games. Games. Games. Games. The WiiU would not have been such a disaster if it weren't for the total lack of games. No television/gaming connections, no extra random features, and especially no pointless and irritating restrictions that makes a simple hobby known as gaming become a fight for justifiable expensive entertainment. And what are the chances that with these constraints Microsoft can quietly jack the price of the games themselves? Up to this point, anything is possible.

Microsoft managed to shatter any momentum it could have had at the expense of the flailing Nintendo WiiU and the also-questionable Playstation 4 (Sony, don’t think that I have forgotten that your stance on DRM remains ho-hum). Now, the WiiU doesn’t look that bad because you can actually share the games, while Sony isn’t pushing for the stupid daily online requirement.



Microsoft, you are ridiculous. You lost a potential buyer this year.




And I am pretty sure you are going to lose many more if you continue down this path.

The Missing IPs of Microsoft

So Resident Evil 6 and Fifa 13 are scoring higher sales on the Playstation 3. The PS3 has owned 44% of the 2012 market compared to the Xbox 360’s 34%. The marginal lead of the Xbox 360 has been reduced to a mere 1.7 million. Microsoft in Japan is being outsold 8 to 1 against Sony. So with all these negative news, you know the momentum is pure Sony when these two get to complete a couple years from now with the next-generation systems. The Playstation 3 is almost fully recovered from the God-awful launch seemingly ions ago, while the Xbox 360 is sputtering thanks to its extremely weak non-American sales.

The question is, why? And how can Microsoft win back the crowd when the next gen hits?

Lack of IPs is the problem, IPs will become the solution.
They need new IPs. Now.



The reason why the Xbox 360 had survived at first was because they were able to pull off some of the exclusives in the Sony side when the PS3 was sputtering for an audience. Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid are examples of franchises that separated their exclusive ways and became multi-platform. So Xbox was beginning to look like an improved and inexpensive form of the Playstation.


And then the new exclusives happened.




God of War. Uncharted. Little Big Planet. Resistance. Killzone. And (this bears repeating) Uncharted happened. All of these started conquering the gaming airwaves, winning awards, earning good sales, and helping Sony establish a new audience of fans they didn’t have before. And then we have old-school exclusives making their return like Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, and Gran Taurismo. So the shift happened---now we have PS3 looking like an improved version of the 360 with its more diverse lineup. While both horrifically pale in compassion to Nintendo in terms of the first-party offerings, Sony is closing in quite nicely in the way Fox Sports is sneaking in to ESPN’s sports viewership market.

Fun fact: On the Wii, the 13 best-selling games in its history are first-party. For the PS3, 8 of the 10 best-selling games are first-party. Microsoft? Only 5 of 10.

Where are Microsoft’s exclusives?



Surely they got Halo, but there are dozens of shooters to counter it, with Call of Duty finally becoming that fabled Halo-killer and becoming the biggest franchise in the seventh generation outside that infamous plumber we all know. Even Bioshock, arguably the best game ever to grace an Xbox system, wound up becoming a PS3 game as well. So, the question remains: where are your exclusive IPs Microsoft?


Time to make some, or bring some from the dead.

Bayonetta became a potential AAA success that got swooped up by Nintendo, but there are a few others ready for the taking. We can start with the Rareware brand, which is still under the Green Machine umbrella, even if the company is leagues behind what they used to be in its heyday. Like I had mentioned before, Perfect Dark, Conker, Banjo, Killer Instinct, Blast Corps, and Jet Force Gemini are all exclusives not even being mentioned to be having a future. Even Battletoads hasn’t seen the light of day since 1994. How can Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have at least 5 re-imaginings yet Battletoads get none?

In order to compete, first-party games are a necessity. Nintendo is going HD and if they play their cards right, will continue to run their model of first-party-rules-all strategy of competing against the big boys. This is why the N64 survived with NO third-party support, why the Gamecube even sold anything, why the Nintendo Wii was able to fly far away from the competitors between 2007-2009, and why the WiiU will have a successful launch even if most of the launch titles are multi-platform. Remember Halo was the only reason the original Xbox was even relevant, but nowadays it takes much more than just one or two exclusives to truly aim for the crown.


The NextBox needs more variety, shooters will help you plenty in America, but in Europe and especially in Japan it won’t help at all. Microsoft needs more exclusive role-playing games to even have a shot at Japan, while they need more action games to enhance the Europe/South America sales.



Lastly, they need more mainstream-accessible games that can be picked up by anybody. Nintendo’s Wii victory can be traced to the simple games (that don’t have the Kinect price tag) that sold phenomenal: Mario Kart Wii with 32 million, Wii Sports Resort with 30 million, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii with 26 million. Argue all you want, but shooters will NEVER hit those numbers.

Microsoft, your lead is dwindling simply because you have no new cards to offer, playing the same hand year after year. If you can’t fix this soon, then expect the Xbox 720 to look like the original Xbox:

Clunky, and barely surviving.



All Information Obtained From: VGCharts

Post-E3 Requirements: Microsoft's XBox 360

So now that E3 is over and the disappointment has dissipated somewhat, the three companies are gathering the reactions and news and moving on from the massive event. Each of the three big competitors are in very different financial and success statuses and have different aspects that require improvement and more focus. E3 revealed these flaws, and unless they can fix the issues before the big and extremely important winter holiday season, we are going to be in for an interesting financial season in gaming. I have compiled what I believe all three companies should do to try to survive the next fiscal year.

Microsoft: Xbox 360

What E3 revealed about Microsoft was that the 360 despite its years of wonderful fan service was running out of steam. The Kinect expanded the lifespan a little but the system wasn’t delivering any surprises. That Metal Gear spinoff is still missing, Halo 4 looks like…Halo, and all of the focus was shifted on a game you could find on the PS3. Xbox however still has one ace up its sleeve that has not been used.



Rareware.

Where is the Killer Instinct 3? The Perfect Dark 3? The ACTUAL Banjo-Kazzoie 3? Blast Corps 2? Jet Force Gemini 2? Conker’s Bad Fur Day 2? Dinosaur Planet 2? Battletoads 5? Microsoft has a lot of exclusive IPs from the British gaming company that they could work on. While Rare is definitely not what it used to be, they still have a few formulas that with a little tweaking can produce grand games.

You can give Bungie or Epic Games Perfect Dark or Jet Force Gemini. You can give the Dead or Alive makers Killer Instinct or Battletoads. You can give the Explosion Man creators Blast Corps for a little change in pace. If you refuse to move on to the next generation, then start throwing some new/rarely used IPs to keep the current gamers excited. Surely Call of Duty will entice the usual gamers, but it will be hard to continue to sell the hardware. PS3 is catching up believe it or not. Bringing back the Rareware glory can end it all.




P.S. This is awesomeness.