Microsoft Apes Nintendo Marketing at GDC

Mar. 21 12:36 PM by Lynxara

Microsoft's been struggling to hit the family market, after easily gaining the hardcore audience's attention with the Xbox 360. Viva Pinata didn't really connect with kids, and the Arcade Pack did sell but not in quantities that compared favorable to sales of the Wii (despite the Wii shortage).

At long last, it seems Microsoft has just decided to battle the Wii by openly stealing its award-winning lifestyle-centered marketing. As originally posted by Game|Life, the top of half of this image depicts Nintendo's Tom Prata at their GDC suite, flanked by the usual shots of attractive young women loving the DS. The bottom half is Dishwasher developer James Silva sitting in the Microsoft suite, flanked by two nearly identical images of attractive, multi-ethnic young people loving the hell out of the Xbox 360.

Hm.

I think I wrote a rambly rant to this effect elsewhere on the 'net when the Arcade Pack debuted, but it bears repeating here. Microsoft, you marketed the 360 out of the gate as the hardcore choice, the system of Halo and GTA, there to give an audience of young men 18-35, predominantly but not exclusively white, what they already wanted.

Now you've found out that Nintendo is selling games to all sorts of people, with roughly a quarter of their hardware in the hands of girls and women the rest of the industry just gave up on. They are making money, getting attention, and building momentum. Now you suddenly want to backpedal and try to prove that, no, really, you've got games for everyone! Enjoy... uh... Boom Boom Rocket and Luxor 2!

This is just kind of insulting, Microsoft. You disowned everyone who didn't look and act like the traditional gamer from the beginning, and backpedaling on that because of Nintendo's financial success simply makes you look craven and spineless.

Comments

The images in the Microsoft office don't look nearly identical to the DS images, but they do look nearly identical to images from the Wii's "Wii would like to play" TV campaign.

The one on the left is most egregious. What the hell is going on with both of them holding remotes and laughing like they're on a rollercoaster? Are they fighting for control of the DVD they're watching?

(This is at least partially an honest question. Does the 360 have some kind of remote support for games I was unaware of?)

 

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