Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi: We Need To Educate Consumers

[Colt47]

So Microsofts plan to convince consumers to buy the Xbox One is to blatantly admit that what the conspiracy theorists bank on is true: by which the entirety of Microsoft prays upon consumer ignorance of the product and what select information they choose to inform the public of?

Okay, EA did some bad stuff, but they did things that were primarily isolated and of bad taste. What Microsoft is implying is something that breaks apart trust and is manipulative in the worst sense.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Does Microsoft really expect us to trust them after they've been caught in bed with the NSA's super secret spy program? Not to mention all of the other issues people have with the actual system.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"We believe the digital world is the future, and we believe digital is better "

Hence we refuse Indie games!
Marketing scum with their lies and twisting....

 

[CyberMachinist]

Well it looks like MS has topped Atari as a "videogame history-Changing" company i can't wait to see what happens next.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

"There's a lot of education we have to provide to make sure that people understand"

Translates to: I'm sorry you're too stupid to understand how awesome we are

Consumers don't hate digital; Steam, GOG, GamersGate, Greenman Gaming, & many others are doing better each day

Consumers hate you, chiefly because they aren't nearly as stupid as you think

 

[Rad Party God]

His comments reminds me of this:


Sometimes, I think Microsoft is run by soulless robots of dimension X or something.

Speaking for myself, I love digital distribution, seriously, I haven't looked back ever since I started buying from Steam and GOG, but neither of those have an arbitrary 24 hour check and (some DRM free Steam games and ALL GOG games) I can share them with my friends without much trouble.

I really don't see any, any advantage at all from the Xbone.

 

[Little Duck]

You know I think I understand the bat he is swinging. THink about this for a second, Diabalo 3 and Sim city BOTH had online DRM and BOTH still sold millions. Think about what they're saying "We've still got games, people will buy this for our games etc etc." If this is his research then yes a DRM console will work as the people who still wanted those products bought it and the people who bought a 360 will, theoretically, still buy a Xbox One.

Except they won't. As we've done some market research. We know what DRM is and how bad it is. It's one thing to tolerate for 10-40 hours of play at £30-40. It's another thing entirely to tolerate it at £500+ (or however much that stupid thing is) for 5-8 years and as a 360 owner I don't see people doing this. I know of my 360 owning friends that 0 are interested in buying the xbone. But I guess we'll need to wait for the "research" to show them that guys.

 

[Trishbot]

We need to be "Educated"?

This is MONTHS after the reveal, WEEKS after the policies were made public, and DURING/AFTER E3! When do they plan on "educating" us about all these benefits that miraculously haven't shown up?

If only they had something like a media round table press-conference to clear all this up... glad they didn't CANCEL something like that... that would have been silly.


... Seriously, they flat-out admit they're banking on consumer ignorance to sell their product. If they wanted people informed, they wouldn't be crossing their wires months after their policies came to light.

 

[Little Duck]

Step 1) Claim that consumers need "re-education"
Step 2) Claim that you are only interested in consumers who don't give a crap anyway
Step 3) GIVE JIM STERLING SO MANY THINGS TO ***** ABOUT HE ENDS UP SWALLOWING HIS LATEX FIST
Step 4) Profit!


Really, at this pace, there'll need to be a daily Jimquisition update, if only to serve as a cathartic release for the shared rage.

I put £10 on seeing that fist being swallowed and doing reverse fisting by next month if this continues. Is this post too far?

 

[StriderShinryu]

On the most basic of levels, I understand what he's saying and I do think he has a point. Consumers don't like change. That's very true. And yes, sometimes you do need to provide extra education and examples as to why the change you're proposing is good. That's just reality. I can honestly see there being potential benefits to cloud computing, unified accounts with attached game library, always on style connections, etc.

To then, however, go on and refuse to offer any of that education by refusing to give the details you just said were needed?

And then to flat out admit that you don't really want customers to be educated at all because it's their collective lack of knowledge that you're truly counting on to sell your product?

Yeah, sorry. Good premise at least and you starting off well. Probably should have stopped there.

 

[Norix596]

Customer education - man, that sounds important. If only there were some kind of high profile, big budget multi-day convention where Microsoft had the platform to come forward and pitch their product to potential customers.

Sarcasm aside, I don't really understand MS's pitch to non-gamers. The target non-gamer audience already has a TV, netflix and a smart-television. I'm not sure what these people will think they're getting for $500 besides a gimmicky voice controller universal remote.

 

[Smiley Face]

Oh, come on, not again...

Well, to be fair, he certainly did better than folks have previously, but even so, he doesn't make any sense.

First, he says that digital is the future and asks us to imagine all the impressive things that only the Xbox can do, and then doesn't actually say IF the Xbox will do any of these things.

Then he makes an argument for why people will buy the Xbone, and manages to contradict himself in doing so.

Point #1: Most consumers don't pay attention to the details we're all getting hung up on, and so will not decide against buying the Xbone.
Point #2: People will buy the Xbone, despite its higher price tag, because they will examine the details and conclude that the Xbone is the better machine.

Come ON! Microsoft, get your act together! This was amusing at first, but now it's getting tired.


Oh, and look - this guy is Microsoft's Xbox Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer - so this is the guy who Microsoft can (and probably should) blame when everything goes to shit.

 

[Leg End]

So, this is officially worse than Sony and the whole "we want to make you work for the PS3" on every level isn't it?

Jesus fucking Christ.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Customer education - man, that sounds important. If only there were some kind of high profile, big budget multi-day convention where Microsoft had the platform to come forward and pitch their product to potential customers.

Someone should make a meme out of that. "Wants to educate people - cancels press conference".

 

[Gray Firion]

Ah finally. I wondered when they were going to say that it was the consumer's fault for not liking their patently bad product. Oh, and that they're banking on the rest of the world not knowing the details about it. You can't have a complete PR shitstorm without one of these, good on them for going with both.

Man, they don't even give their feet a 24h rest before shooting it anymore. I know it's just a stump at this point, but pretty soon they're gonna blast away the entire legs too.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Thankfully, normal people seem to be taking note of the ludicrous policies of the xbone. Hell, my mother knows why no-one should buy it and has actively discouraged a friend from pre-ordering one for the kids. This is the same woman who hasn't played a video game since the original sonic, and even then she wasn't a fan.

People with some medium presence on the internet are having this shoved in their faces and it's amazing.

Yes Microsoft, digital distribution IS better, you know what else is cool? Steam prices. GOG style ownership. No 24 hour checkins which you still haven't justified and no required camera to play games. Show me why it's worth the downsides and then we'll talk, all you have so far is bullshit.

 

[Taurus Vis]

Unfortunately, Mr. Mehdi, your chief problem is that we are well educated, not undereducated. We can fully comprehend the abusive business practices that stem from the precedents your trying to set. I believe you wish more to force us into abusive relationships, much like paying $60 a year for online gaming when PS3 was free, as well as EA forcing online passes on to us. The unfortunate thing about the pay for Live service, is that Sony has adopted it, because enough of us didn't vote with our wallets and allowed you to set that precedent.

The message that we, as informed consumers will spread now, is to not buy the Xbone, and diligently work to make sure none of our friends buy, although Sony and even yourself have made that quite the easy choice. You want to fuck the consumers. Prepare to lose you job, you fucking suit wearing monkeys.

Captcha: "with bells on"


I'll be to Xbone's funeral with bells on!

 

[Do4600]

"educate consumers" Oh I'd say we've learned enough about your console.

Wow, it's like, Microsoft are living in a bubble.

It just boggles my mind how ridiculously anti-consumer this is, and the sad thing is, it probably won't fall flat on it's arse.

It represents everything wrong with blind, uninformed consumerism.

Is there anything that's right with it?

Weeeeelllll....The PS4 is probably going to dominate over the more Orwellian console simply because of it's cost. So in this case the lying, oblivious and greedy company is probably going to get shafted by "blind, uninformed consumerism" simply because the lying, oblivious and greedy company is lacking the one trait the "blind, uninformed" consumers want, cheap products. I'd call that a boon.

 

[Daveman]

Idiots.

"The possibilities are endless with the new digital system!"
"Really? How so?"
"Erm, well, we haven't really figured that out yet entirely but trust us, everything will be better!"

Sure Microsoft, sure.

Also they're looking at their research all wrong. They shouldn't think "Well these guys will buy it anyway so who cares?", they should think "Wow, all these people might have bought our console if not for this." This CEO will not last long with the current mentality methinks.

 

[TwoSidesOneCoin]

Need to educate me? I grasp what you're trying to do with this console, so you'll have to trust me, when I say that I've already decided which console I'm going to support if any. All I can say is thank god I got a PC.