The Xbox One Debacle

When I think of video games, and the reactions people have to them I don’t usually think of the gamer as having very much say in how a console is made. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo (the console giants) want their gamers to be happy, but they also want to make money. A lot of money. This is where there is the occasional conflict and usually the gamers simply have to live with it, however, sometimes, the gamers get their way instead. For example, When Microsoft introduced the Xbox One, they announced that all the games would be direct download in order to make the games cheaper, meaning that no hard copies of any Xbox One games would exist. Fans of the Xbox 360 were outraged. With no hard copies of games, there would be no such thing as sharing a game. Petitions to the company were written, videos went up on YouTube, and seething blogs were written against the Xbox One as gamers across the world rejected this idea.

The Sony PlayStation 4 was lucky enough to give their announcement a few weeks later. They made it very clear that they considered the idea of download-only games, but they decided against it. Sony even created a 30 second ad in which they demonstrate how to share a video game by simply handing the hard copy to a friend. Several months later, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One would revert to hard copies of video games, due to the public outcry.

Biz Stone would be proud. Every form of social media made an appeal to the video game industry in order to conserve the ability to share hard copies of games. I found this to be a great example of social activism which caused a change.

I’m adding a few links.

Sony’s “sharing games” ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWSIFh8ICaA
Update from Microsoft announcing the reversion to hard copies.
http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/update