To me aarons approach of marketing is pure cringe and hurts the brand. Those tweets are really hard to look at. I'm sure he is a nice person, but I'm not happy with the xbox brand communication of him.
My feelings exactly. He might be genuine and all but comes of super cringe. Im sure he's a super Nice Guy and all but the industry has changed. Way more people are interested in the technical aspect of this new gen. I want to hear from people who has technical knowledge in games and platform.
Its frustrating to watch when you know MS has easy a 100 people that could deliver the message in a better way.
In another note I'd like to offer some thoughts on how to atleast compete next gen and beyond.
I like the idea of getting studios with more potential then their games show but I'm not a fan of getting/building studios with a single franchise in mind. Every studio going forward needs to have more then 1 IP to keep things fresh. You are not going to aquire the best talent of you tell them that they're going to work on gears and only gears for years to come. The exception to this rule are studios that just churn out new games all the time like Double fine or Rare
MS diversity in studio locations might also be a problem when they all draw talent from the same pool. For example they have 3 studios in England but none (except Mojang) in the rest of Europe. There is a lot of talent in Sweden/Poland/Germany/France that you could use. Also nothing in Asia. This might not be a problem but it helps a lot being Present in the market that you are trying to penetrate.
VR.....Nothing I'm personally super interested in at home atleast but it's the perception in not having the tech in a box that is absolutely capable of it. Having partnered with Valve on Steam why couldn't it work the other way around with steam peripherals working on and XSX. MS seems to always be giving and never getting. What has Nintendo done for MS for example?
Give From Software all the cash they want to make you an exclusive. / Give EA all the money they want to make a Mass Effect 4 / Give EA/Disney all the money they want for a new KoTor. Even if it don't make financial sense with some of these desicions MS are in a state where they need to make statements. Sony hade several of these this gen where they said "fuck it" and went with it. Bloodborne, FF7 remake, Shenmue 3, Spider-Man, Kojima game and so on. The only real stunt like that MS did this gen was early on with an Insomniac exclusive.
I'm a three console nutjob and love them all. Well maybe not my switch but thats for when I want to play with my kids and feel that Sony has evolved something fierce this gen with their studios. I mean we weren't really regarding Sony Santa Monica to be one of the top devs in the world before the new God of war. But they are now... same with Guerilla games and where did Bend studios come from?