Xbox Originator: "Stupid, Stupid Xbox!!"

Freshly Exhumed writes "You can't begrudge Nat Brown for claiming some pride in the birth of Microsoft's game console: 'I was a founder of the original xBox project at Microsoft and gave it its name. Almost 14 years after the painful, pointless, and idiotic internal cage-match to get it started and funded, the hard selling of a compelling and lucrative living-room product to Bill (and then Steve as he began to take over), a product that consumers would want and love and demand, I am actually still thrilled to see how far it has come...' But in his recent ILIKE.CODE blog post he is driven to lament 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.' Nat goes on to detail a list of Microsoft's past and present strategic Xbox blunders, while tossing some barbs towards Nintendo's and Sony's game console strategies."

Comments

Classic Geek Mistake

[DavidD_CA]

I think the classic geek mistake is being made here... that just because it isn't right for them, it's not right for anyone.

I don't own an X-Box (I have a PS3), but after hearing about all of the interactive and extended things it can do, I'm really wishing I would have bought the X-Box instead years ago.

I love the idea that it can act as a simple extender for my Windows-based home network. I know the PS3 can do this, but I've never been able to get it to work perfectly.

I love that I can control the Xbox now with a Windows Phone, using Smart Glass.

I'm interested in how the games and achievements from my Windows Phone can interact with the X-Box.

Lately I use my PS3 more for Amazon Prime videos than anything else. And I've spent more money on DLC, movies, and songs than I have on video games by a factor of 100.

These are all things that might be viewed by some people as wasteful, non-essential, non-gamer things. But to me, they're important.