Monday August 14, 2006
Monday August 14, 2006
It
isn't often that I read an article and feel obligated to immediately sit
downand write a blog entry, but this one has me pretty worked up.
It is the article "Upnext: 'YouTube' of video games?" on the San Jose Mercury News today (Aug 14, 2006).
This article talks about how Microsoft is going to lower the cost of its development tools to $99 in order to to get lots of people working on games for the Xbox 360. How they are going to create the YouTube of games. Get high school and college students to develop games that are sold on Xbox Live. It is a dream come true ...
But Microsoft completely missed the point. High school and college kids are interested in creating video games. They would be psyched to share thes with their friends. Get access to the guts of the Xbox 360 and see what they can create. But why the $99???? Does Microsoft think they will make back their huge investment in the Xbox 360 from these kids?! Don't they understand the culture that exists?! Clearly - the answer is no. If they did, they wouldn't compare their discounted and crippled tools to YouTube, where it doesn't cost ANYTHING to post videos.
Sony, are you listening? Microsoft has opened up a HUGE opportunity for you. Create a community. Give them the tools that they need. Don't charge them for these tools. Make it easy and fun to build games for the Playstation 3. You are really late with your box. Don't make the same mistakes that Microsoft is making. Grow and foster the community and make your money back from all of us who want to buy the box that has the best games!!
This article talks about how Microsoft is going to lower the cost of its development tools to $99 in order to to get lots of people working on games for the Xbox 360. How they are going to create the YouTube of games. Get high school and college students to develop games that are sold on Xbox Live. It is a dream come true ...
But Microsoft completely missed the point. High school and college kids are interested in creating video games. They would be psyched to share thes with their friends. Get access to the guts of the Xbox 360 and see what they can create. But why the $99???? Does Microsoft think they will make back their huge investment in the Xbox 360 from these kids?! Don't they understand the culture that exists?! Clearly - the answer is no. If they did, they wouldn't compare their discounted and crippled tools to YouTube, where it doesn't cost ANYTHING to post videos.
Sony, are you listening? Microsoft has opened up a HUGE opportunity for you. Create a community. Give them the tools that they need. Don't charge them for these tools. Make it easy and fun to build games for the Playstation 3. You are really late with your box. Don't make the same mistakes that Microsoft is making. Grow and foster the community and make your money back from all of us who want to buy the box that has the best games!!