When Microsoft unveiled their Xbox One to the world, it came out as a total disaster. There were so many changes the company had made which ultimately killed the joy and fun gamers had planned on having with the current generation release.
During the initial announcement, Microsoft made the Xbox One truly limited to select gamers. For instance, the console was required to always be connected online, DRM was strict making it impossible to lend games or purchase used titles, and it seemed that the company was heading away from gaming to only present an entertainment hub.
It wasn’t long after their announcements that gamers and press dissected the announcement and labeled Microsoft’s Xbox One console as dead on arrival. Despite leaning towards their decision to keep these features, Microsoft ultimately caved and changed their original ideas to something that gamers would be interested in.
Though it wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch, since their original announcement, we’re getting a bit more insight behind their decisions.
Recently, Vice President Yusuf Mehdi, spoke of the original Xbox One announcements on LinkedIn. For the most part, Yusuf and Microsoft as a whole noted that they had to take care of the fans as they will take care of you.
“Balancing your business objectives with the needs of your customers is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face, but if you really focus on doing the right thing for your customers, you’re on the path. Doing the right thing is not always the easiest thing and that will be the truest test of your values as a company and your commitment to real customer-centricity.
We’ve experienced these challenges ourselves with Xbox. With our initial announcement of Xbox One and our desire to deliver breakthroughs in gaming and entertainment, the team made a few key decisions regarding connectivity requirements and how games would be purchased that didn’t land well with fans.
While the intent was good – we imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing and new ways to try and buy games, we didn’t deliver what our fans wanted. We heard their feedback, and while it required great technical work, we changed Xbox One to work the same way as Xbox 360 for how our customers could play, share, lend, and resell games. This experience was such a powerful reminder that we must always do the right thing for our customers, and since we’ve made that commitment to our Xbox fans, we’ve never looked back.”
With this year’s E3 expo coming up, Microsoft will likely be unveiling the Project Scorpio in more detail. Since the company is looking to treat their fans fairly and craft an experience to their liking, it will be interesting to see just how they present their updated console.
