Microsoft Redefines the Word 'Choice' with Games on Demand Strategy
Having customers wait six months is a choice, apparently.
Microsoft isn't going to follow Sony's lead and start releasing games on Xbox Live on the same day they hit retail store shelves. Actually, it's quite happy where it is regarding its Games on Demand strategy, thank you very much.
While Sony has moved to release some PlayStation 3 games day-and-date with their retail launches - and has an even more robust digital strategy for PlayStation Vita titles - Microsoft is keen to stick to a cycle where it releases digital versions of games six months after they hit stores.
"We don’t do Games on Demand on day one, we focus on boxed retail for day one," said Xbox Live UK's product manager Pav Bhardwaj. That's a pretty candid way of putting it, Pav. Thanks.
Pav then decides to get confusing, adding that "It comes down to choice." That's perhaps the most elastic use of the word 'choice' ever. "The customer has the choice of going to retail on day one if they really want to buy a particular title, or to wait a couple of months and buy it full price from the Xbox Live marketplace."
Perhaps a real choice would be either to buy a game from the store on day one, or buy it from the Xbox Live Marketplace on day one. Waiting a few months doesn't sound like a choice to us, but then we're not UK product managers of a big international company. So we're probably talking guff here.
"It’s a successful part of our business, we’re very pleased with the growth and it continues to do really well," Pav adds. "Clearly there’s an audience out there who are happy to purchase a product at full ERP six or so months after [its retail release].
"We release a game roughly six months after it arrives at retail at full ERP. That’s our model and we’ll be sticking to that. It’s a successful model, so why change something you don’t need to?”
Why, indeed.
Source: MCV
While Sony has moved to release some PlayStation 3 games day-and-date with their retail launches - and has an even more robust digital strategy for PlayStation Vita titles - Microsoft is keen to stick to a cycle where it releases digital versions of games six months after they hit stores.
"We don’t do Games on Demand on day one, we focus on boxed retail for day one," said Xbox Live UK's product manager Pav Bhardwaj. That's a pretty candid way of putting it, Pav. Thanks.
Pav then decides to get confusing, adding that "It comes down to choice." That's perhaps the most elastic use of the word 'choice' ever. "The customer has the choice of going to retail on day one if they really want to buy a particular title, or to wait a couple of months and buy it full price from the Xbox Live marketplace."
Perhaps a real choice would be either to buy a game from the store on day one, or buy it from the Xbox Live Marketplace on day one. Waiting a few months doesn't sound like a choice to us, but then we're not UK product managers of a big international company. So we're probably talking guff here.
"It’s a successful part of our business, we’re very pleased with the growth and it continues to do really well," Pav adds. "Clearly there’s an audience out there who are happy to purchase a product at full ERP six or so months after [its retail release].
"We release a game roughly six months after it arrives at retail at full ERP. That’s our model and we’ll be sticking to that. It’s a successful model, so why change something you don’t need to?”
Why, indeed.
Source: MCV
Companies:
Microsoft
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