Haven't upgraded to the Xbox One or PS4 yet? Well, no worries. You're not alone. However, if you were planning on buying an Xbox One you might find yourself alone... or with very few people supporting that decision.
A new report from Dealnews market research has surveyed gamers about trends and choices in the gaming industry and even with Phil Spencer still trying to spin gold out of the fecal-policies that were put into place last year when the Xbox One originally debuted, it still isn't enough to win over a very stubborn and very steadfast gaming audience.
For those of you who are purebred Xbox fanboys, you might want to cover your eyes on this part because it will cause the sort of salty response that you would expect from your girlfriend at a Channing Tatum or Ryan Gosling romantic drama. Behold the stats that explain why the Xbox One is dying on store shelves:
Holy whaaat?!
I mean, ouch. That's worse than Dennis Rodman's post-NBA career.
It looks like Microsoft pissed off more of their own fanbase than Mahbod Moghadam managed to piss off the entire internet.
Two-thirds of Xbox 360 owners aren't even going to give the Xbox One a looksy at the $399 mark. That's without Kinect, that's with the new Games for Gold program and that's with apps being brought from behind the Xbox Live paywall like Darius Rucker emerging from the adult alternative genre as a country star.
I'm shocked and yet I'm not. Remember that old saying gamers adopted last year? “Never forgive. Never forget.”
They are applying that maxim like a spurned mistress finding out that her beau won't ever leave his wife no matter how many times he says he will.
In this case, gamers saw one too many mentions of DRM, too many line-drops about watching TV on your TV, got caught one time too often having sex in front of the NSA spybox and heard too much about those used game fees to give over their wallets so easy.
I guess NeoGaf really worked the gaming audience over with that #NoDRM campaign, eh?
So what does this mean for Microsoft? It means that Phil Spencer and crew have a long and hard road ahead of them. And at this rate, it's 100% unlikely that the Xbox One will overtake the PS4 in sales by 2015.
The $399 price-cut and policy reversal regarding free app access couldn't have come at a better time as E3 will be the perfect place to help change around the image they built up for themselves with all those ridiculous decisions.
In this case, it's not just a matter of having games to show, but also proving that the boys and girls at Microsoft aren't just a cold, heartless machine after your wallet like some kind of horny teenager attending the prom with his girlfriend just because he rented a cheap motel room next door.
Microsoft needs to prove that they care about game culture and care about the future of the industry in the same way that Valve cared about restoring the glory of the PC platform, Nintendo cared about maintaining the essence of couch co-op and Sony cared about delivering as many high-quality games as possible on a home gaming console.
With the company having gone silent on actual sales numbers since January this year, and opting to display shipped totals instead of what they sold, the market impressions from the survey definitely seem to fit in line with where Microsoft stands with the Xbox One on the marketplace.
[Update: Additional information regarding the survey can be found here]
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