According to one of the creators for the Xbox, the last five years for the Xbox 360 have been “painful to watch,” writes Luke Karmali for IGN on Feb. 13.
The creator, Nat Brown, one of the men responsible for the original Xbox, writes his decimation of the new console in a blog post titled “Stupid, Stupid Xbox.” In the post, he “asserts that Microsoft has spent the last five years mistakenly trying to turn the Xbox into a multimedia hub whilst abandoning all the studios and design features that made it a great games console in the first place.”
Brown writes: “The past 5 years, and the last year in particular, have been simply painful to watch. Coasting on past momentum. Failing to innovate and failing to capitalize on innovations like Kinect. Touting strategic and market success when you’re just experiencing your competitor’s stumbling failure (yes, Sony, Nintendo – you are, I’m afraid, stumbling failures). A complete lack of tactical versus strategic understanding of the long game of the living room."
He goes on to explain how he does agree with expanding the gaming experience throughout the living room. But he also says this comes at a great cost: the quality of the games, and the focus on what makes games great and fun.
“More and better content was always the point and the plan. My gripe is that, as usual, Microsoft has jumped its own shark and is out stomping through the weeds planning and talking about far-flung future strategies in interactive television and original programming partnerships with big dying media companies when their core product, their home town is on fire, their soldiers, their developers, are tired and deserting, and their supply-lines are broken.”
He talks about a dying “ecosystem” that supports small developers and programmers for making their own games, specifically digital/downloadable games. “"Why can’t I write a game for Xbox tomorrow using $100 worth of tools and my existing Windows laptop and test it on my home Xbox or at my friends’ houses? Why can’t I then distribute it digitally in a decent online store, give up a 30% cut and strike it rich if it’s a great game, like I can for Android, for iPhone, or for iPad?" he questions.
He concludes, pretty negatively, that Microsoft is living in a “naïve dream-world” and “Xbox just needs somebody with a brain and focus to get the product in order tactically before romping forward to continue the long-term strategic promise of an Xbox in every living room, connected to every screen."
As with a lot of major electronics companies lately, Microsoft has come under heavy fire recently. Specifically, from former employees taking aim at the direction the company has taken. Just last week former VP of Windows Sales, Joachim Kempin, claimed that Microsoft should refocus its efforts on developing PCs as opposed to consoles, tablets, and other peripherals.
For more information, check out Luke Karmali’s article on IGN.
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