Justin Bieber Brainwashing Teens to Buy Kinect

[Sougo]

Microsoft has gone to the lil girls. How can such a machine ever be called Hardcore again.

Bad Beiber. Go stand in the corner. And take your damn Kinect with you.

Beib-ster, really? maybe microsoft should rename Kinect to Beibster 360 now.

EDIT: Now I officially hate Beiber (not just his patronizing fans). As long as he sat in his own domain away from me, I didn't care. But now he comes to ruin gaming too.
I see new 360 titles .... Dance Dance Beiber.

 

[SnipErlite]

I hope he tries to read the German version of the manual.

Man, that'd be funny.

Ok first,
OT:Well that's my chance of getting kinect gone...

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week....

 

[Woodsey]

As pointed out on Feedback, it's ironic that the serious gamers and journo's were shown Kinect at E3 and none of them are the target audience.

OT: Oh, and who the f*ck dresses Bieber? Because they seriously don't have a clue.

I hope he tries to read the German version of the manual.

Man, that'd be funny.

German? No, no; they don't have that word in America...

 

[Stoic raptor]

It's an advertisment technique used nearly all the time!

A business will get a celebrity in their ads.
The idea is that the viewers will think "oh he has that, it must be good" or anything similer.

Examples
There was the 3 sports guys [footnote]one of which I know was Tiger Woods, I do not recognize the other 2.[/footnote] and Gillette.
There was David Becham (I think) and the sharpie permanent markers.

Edit:
Oh ho ho.
I just had an interesting observation.

The Escapist Staff know that the majority opinion in the escapist is that Justin Bieber is horrible and he sucks etc so they bias their articles to appeal to us.

Disclaimer: I do not like Justin Bieber, I just like neutral news.

Dont all reporters do this?
The Escapist isnt any different. Although I didnt notice it, so good observation

 

[newbienator]

The screams, my ears, the horror.

Now add the Vuvuzela function

OT: Wait so the message from that ad was play the Kinect, lose all my friends?

 

[Giest4life]

Damn, justin Bieber loves the Kinect. I guess Jusitn Bieber and I have a lot more in common than I thought. Which sucks balls.

 

[Tharwen]

How the fuck is such a person an international celebrity? I mean, really? Mob psychology can't account for that many people somehow... liking him, can it?

 

[Macgyvercas]

And my faith in humanity drops yet again. Current score: -3.00x10^8

Also,

How many teen girls who are Justin Bieber fans own a 360 in the first place? Very little, they mostly will all have Wiis if any console at all. I can't see them running out and getting both a 360 and Kinect.

This sums it up nicely.

I'm willing to bet everything I own that they're going to slap Bieber's mug on the fucking thing and every teenage girl from here to Timbuktu will buy the damn thing.

*knocks on wood in hopes that doesn't happen*

Truth be told though, that would not surprise me at this point.

 

[JdaS]

So, you're telling me that Justin Bieber was a corporate puppet all along? Color me confused.

 

[Baby Tea]

LMFAO. It's Final, Kinect is a FAILURE of a product. GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. YOU GOT HIM ADVERTISING?

Hang on...

The Kinect is a failure of a product, yet it's not even on sale yet, and you've never played it...but it's a failure? You're also implying that Justin Bieber, who is listened to by hundreds of thousands of people who are within the target market will make it worse somehow?

That's the silliest thing I've heard this week.
I'm glad you're not in-charge of any type of marketing.

I'm really disappointed by the response in this news post.
It's very smart marketing, plain and simple. If you don't like Bieber, that just means you weren't in the target demographic for this marketing stunt. And I fail to see how his marketing Kinect makes it worse. Does that mean the PSP sucks because I can't stand that Marcus kid? That doesn't make any sense.

If you don't like that fact that people are buying things because a celebrity was seen using one, then you'll have to rage on 90% of products out there. It's marketing, and it's not isolated to one product or celebrity. That's just the way it works.

If anyone was persuaded to buy a PS3 (Or PS3 game) because of the charming Kevin Butler commercials, it's the exact same crap. A spokesman appealed to a certain type of person, they liked the sales pitch, they bought the product. That's how it goes.

Your personal opinions, and mine, of Justin Beiber and his music aside, I can't see how anyone can deny this isn't smart marketing. Microsoft wants to reach out to the non-gamer community, and the Justin Beiber fans are probably right square in the middle of that. That's good marketing. It's good exposure, it's a good endorsement, it's smart marketing.

Geez, guys.

 

[Treblaine]

In an apparent backstage video that was shown before Bieber began lip-syncing to auto-tuned music, we see Bieber's "crew" using Kinect to play Dance Central [http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Central-Xbox-360/dp/B002I0HBOI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1277654728&sr=8-1], where Kinect reads a player's movements and translates them to an Xbox Live avatar. Bieber, obviously off doing something way cooler than playing videogames, wanders in and observes his "crew" playing the game and gets into it himself.

Firstly, righteous burn, you can almost smell the burning flesh. The only crew I want to see Beiber in is is a submarine crew as he gets depth-charged (that is NOT a euphemism).

But what do you actually mean by "hardcore" and "casual". Like is a biker who's favourite pastime is drive-by shooting deer "not hardcore" if he doesn't own or is interested in any games console like PS3 or 360?

Do you simply mean Microsoft is going "downmarket" resorting to populist "pop-stars" to sell their systems to the masses based on simple gimmicky appeal? You know, those old Arcade games that catch your attention and you play with for 5 or 10 minutes then get bored.

Casual gaming doesn't really say much, it is hard to get too worked up about any game, most people play games relaxed and laid back, it's hardly a formal and stressful affair. Hardcore doesn't say much as by definition it means the smallest and most loyal followers, even halo 3 was not specifically for the hardcore, though it did appeal to the hardcore it was still for a much wider audience than that.

 

[archvile93]

As horrible, talentless and a sellout Bieber is, I have to admit it's good marketing. I'd say "clever", but that would imply that you'd have to use your brain to think up the idea.

 

[Iron Mal]

How many teen girls who are Justin Bieber fans own a 360 in the first place? Very little; they mostly will all have Wiis if any console at all. I can't see them running out and getting both a 360 and Kinect.

You forget one very important thing, how many of these fans will have brothers who do own an Xbox? (why buy your own when you can hijack someone else's?)

EDIT: I just noticed this is my 2500th post, can I celebrate?

 

[Paddin]

This is sickening. Not that I have much of a problem with Justin Bieber, mainly because I have somehow never ran across his music, but that blatant product placement is just.. ugh.

Nintendo's celebrity endorsement was annoying, but at least it was accurate, such as when Patrick Stewart played Brain Training, because you could believe he might play that. Microsoft's celebrity endorsement is just terrible, such as when Steven Spielberg came out at last year's E3, and now Justin Bieber..

It's tactics like this that make me look on my 360 in shame sometimes.

 

[Dfskelleton]

If I already don't want the Kinect, do you really think that Justin Bieber will make me want it? I hope Justin Bieber decides to play a game like Halo or L4D online so that that all the whiny 11 year olds verbally bombard him with "your mom!" replies. That's why I NEVER play those games online.
Also, this is another one of those RAGE threads, isn't it?

 

[Carnagath]

Does this kind of marketing campaign work on anyone really? Celebrity marketing I mean. Yes, it used to be the bomb ten years ago, but haven't people gotten smarter since then? How does watching a celebrity use a product change your view on it in any way? Ok, sure, maybe if you are a 15 year old child half-insane from the hormones you might fall for it, but I thought this was an age where the majority of gamers are over 18. Kinect is a cool-ish but horrendously overpriced gimmick, and I don't think that my opinion would change even if Microsoft reincarnated freaking Mozart to use it in front of a camera. Welcome to the age of reason, Microsoft. Show me a substabtial demonstration of how a "real" game, like Fable 3, utilizes Kinect in a pant-wetting way and I might reconsider. But this...really?

 

[Christemo]

good fuck, now Kinect´s worth just dropped by 149.99 $