Xbox 360 Doesn't Want To Be Hardcore

An anonymous reader writes "CNET.com.au has just posted an interview with Microsoft Game Studio head Shane Kim. The head games exec for the Xbox 360 admits he wants the console to be more family friendly (read: more like Nintendo and Sony). From the article: 'The positioning of the platform is very different now. We were so paranoid that people knew the Xbox was a hardcore gaming machine in the first generation that we really alienated, or closed off, a lot of our opportunity.'"

Comments

Price?

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The head games exec for the Xbox 360 admits he wants the console to be more family friendly.

Lower the price. $299 - $399 for a console isn't family friendly.

No kidding

[Mille Mots]

My wife pointed out that the 360 was a poor choice for a 'family gaming system' as there were no games geared for kids of about six years old. As surprised as I was that she even knew what a 360 was, let alone what titles were available, she has a point. She actually suggested waiting for the PS3 release.

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Re:No kidding

[Fiver-]

They may not be games for 6 year olds, but I don't remember anything in Jak II that a 3rd or 4th grader couldn't handle. Nothing that I hadn't seen in ... Bionic Commando

Yeah, but did Jak have Hitler's head exploding at the end of the game?

Best NES game evar.

Wierd

[Kent Simon]

I thought this was Nintendo's strategy. Microsoft pushing for HD, and debuting at 400 bucks, and a huge focus on graphics seems to me 3 very blatant pushes for trying to capture the "hardcore" area.

Re:Wierd

[Captain Splendid]

Actually I think their statregy isn't so much to capture the "hardcore" area, but the "media center" area. The 2 aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but I think what they're trying to do is aim for a level of ubiquity beyond what you'd expect from a game machine.

I heard an interesting discussion about this

[Dark Paladin]

The discussion was regarding Microsoft's announced intentions to make the Xbox 360 a "mainstream" system, not for "hardcore" gamers at all.

And yet - they have a $400 console, the games for the system so far are a lot of FPS games, then there's Condemned, and Dead or Alive 4 - all interesting games, but nothing that makes me want to sit down with my 4 year old son and 7 year old daughter and say "Hey, let's play some DOA4, kids! Watch Kasumi's bounce physics!"

We have started up a game of "Kingdom Heart 2", which we can all enjoy, or Mario 64 DS, or my daughter really likes "Animal Crossing" and wants her own DS someday for "Nintendogs" (which she can only get if she keeps her grades up and does well in her chess club), and my non-gamer wife likes Tetris on the new DS.

So far, I'd say that if Microsoft intends for the 360 to be a "non-hardcore" system, then so far they're doing a crappy job of it. Right now, it *defines* the hardcore console gamer.

Re:Xbox is for fratboys...?

[gabebear]

"I mean the PS* was built on sports games."

not even remotely ass much as the XBox is/was, first person shooters and sports games seem to make up over half of the library for the XBox.