The one in which I rant about Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo

October 9, 2007

A curious thing happened recently. Microsoft's Director of Programming for Xbox Live, Larry Hryb (bane of spell checkers everywhere), asked gamers what they would tell the MS brass about how to run their company. As you can imagine, everyone has something to say; the comment counter is at 936 right now. Opinions run the gamut from "make Xbox Live free" to "things on the Xbox Live Marketplace cost too much." Oh, and "Halo 3 should be playable with a keyboard and mouse." Real good. Larry pleads with us to think bigger than just the Xbox, but asking for global strategic planning from anonymous Internet users on a site linked to on gaming forums? My first piece of advice would be "don't do that."

If Microsoft wanted to know what users wanted they could spend ten minutes reading the comments on any Slashdot post. Our demands are simple. Remove software activation, back off on proprietary protocols, kill all DRM... basically compete by offering superior products, support, and earning customer trust. You can see why Microsoft isn't rushing to change. In his Zune 2 preview, Paul Thurott muses ("Final Thoughts") that Apple fans may lose their trust in the company after this iPod Touch/iPhone locking mess. And then go out and buy a Zune. Just a tip, Paul: number two on an Apple fanboy's list of most trusted companies is not Microsoft.

Wow. Sorry about all that. I forgot this isn't the Fake Diary of John Gruber.

Anyway, Larry's call for advice got me to thinking: what would I tell Microsoft about how to run the Xbox franchise? And for that matter, what would I tell Sony and Nintendo? Gather round ye children, as I tell a tale of a happy land, where overpaid executives have some idea of what their customers really want. And act on these desires. And sing, and dance, and ring in the new.

First up is Microsoft, since someone there had the balls to ask us what should be done. Their problem, as we all know, is a horrific hardware failure rate. Apparently the first ten million Xbox 360s were made of balsa wood and held together with Elmer's glue. The good news is that they've done nearly everything to make amends. Peter Moore publicly apologized for the failures with a letter on xbox.com. They extended the warranty for a full three years, so if your console goes busto you can get it fixed for free. One task remains: tell us what the failure rate is. We know it's not the industry average - Sony and Nintendo have not announced similar programs, so we know this is isolated to the Xbox 360. You did a good job apologizing, now finish the job and give us the number.

Another problem for Microsoft is Sony, but not in the way you'd think. The problem is that Sony is an excellent liar and people are starting to believe that Sony's online service is a "free" version of Xbox Live. Microsoft needs to disabuse people of this notion. Here are five critical areas of distinction. If this sounds like a sales pitch, well, you can probably guess whose online service I prefer.

Server speed
Xbox Live's downloads are always significantly faster than Sony's on my Comcast connection. This boosts the Xbox's low power download mode and the fact that the console performs updates in 30 seconds or less compared to the PS3's five minute plus snorefests.

Demos and trials
Every game on Xbox Live Arcade has a free trial you can download to see if you like it. Every single one. The PS3 has 41 arcade and classic games and only seven of them have trials. Nintendo has an impressive number of Virtual Console titles but zero demos. Likewise, there are more retail Xbox game demos on the online Marketplace than Sony even has on the shelves.

Griefer deterrent
Xbox Live is still filled with immature, racist, drug-addled players, but these are probably the good ones. Having to plunk down $50 if you get banned is the best thing you can do to discourage cheaters short of going to their house and cutting off their hands Hammurabi-style. If you get banned on Sony's network you can always sign up again for free. I'd consider the PS3's online account registration itself a deterrent due to the tiny text and endless steps, but people who cheat in video games clearly have nothing better to do.

Rich feature set
Try sending a voice message to a friend while you're playing Motorstorm. Can't do it. Neither can you see what your friends are playing, have played, nor invite them to join your game in progress. While Sony offers basic matchmaking tools, Xbox Live has far more robust community support.

Movie and TV downloads
Somehow Sony has an entire movie branch at its disposal but you can't even rent Spider-man 3. On Xbox Live you can rent HD movies for less than Blockbuster and buy episodes of TV shows right off the console. I bought an episode of South Park yesterday and was watching it in 60 seconds.

Sony's problems are simpler to remedy, buy they require a challenging amount of humility to accomplish. Here's the trouble: Sony lies to its users, then denies that it lies. Exhibit one is the declaration that there will not be two PS3 editions available at launch (but there were: one 20gb and one 60gb). Then Sony says it cannot integrate rumble alongside motion sensing in the SIXAXIS controller for technical and price reasons, not because of ongoing litigation with Immersion over patents. Finally, we are told that backwards compatibility is a core feature of the PS3, but lo and behold they release a 40gb model in Europe with no PS2 compatibility at all.

The solution is quite simple: apologize for lying to your users. Admit you were wrong and commit to not repeating those mistakes. One idea would be to hire a Playstation fanboy and make him your official interview censor. Task this person with maintaining a record of all statements made to the public and allow him or her to stop your executives mid-sentence if the exec is going to say something stupid. Call me crazy, but when you have bigwigs denying that a product is on shelves when it clearly is, it's time for an intervention.

Bluray is supposed to be the fabulous technology driving the PS3 to success, but gamers have not seen an inkling of its possibility. You have 25gb of space on each disc, nearly three times that of the Xbox's DVDs: your games should be three times as long. Or have three times the cutscenes (though some might rightly argue this would be a bad thing). Or do what the Stranglehold guys are doing and put an HD movie right there on the disc. The ability to store multiple languages on one disc is appealing to the packaging department and multilingual households, but gameplay-wise nothing had changed. Titles like Final Fantasy XIII will probably be impossible on anything besides Bluray, but you can't count on platform exclusives anymore. Encourage multi-platform games to include something special with all the extra room Bluray provides; a French language option doesn't cut it.

I suppose Nintendo also has problems, but let's be frank: the house of Mario is kicking butt this generation. Turns out there's a lot of money to be made selling simple motion games to housewives and old folks. Who knew? The other thing is that Nintendo has been publicly admitting and correcting its mistakes as they happen. Straps are breaking? Send out thicker ones. People are still throwing the remotes at their televisions? Give them clear plastic jackets for the remotes that will absorb impacts. Way to accommodate the homicidal tendencies of your users, Nintendo.

But Nintendo's biggest folly is clear to anyone who tries to play an online game with their friends: the dreaded friend codes. Instead of a universal username to identify users, Nintendo randomly generates a 16 digit code that you are supposed to exchange with your friends in person. I can see the logic behind this system: it stops pedophiles and ensures that anyone you play with online is someone you know in the real world. It still drives hardcore gamers batty, as there have been zero reports of inappropriate liaisons formed over Xbox Live. Would you rather be "IceKold28" or "6359-5368-9076-1474"? Dump the friend codes, Nintendo, and get us running with a real online system. We all know you've got the money to do it.

I'll make no bones about it: I'm a Microsoft fanboy and I hope they beat Sony into the dirt this generation. For all of its supposed technical superiority, games on the PS3 still run slower, download slower (why the heck do we have to "install" a game after downloading it off the PSN Store?), and ship to retail later than Xbox ones. Coming off the success of the PS2 you would think they'd be unstoppable. But the true dark horse candidate in this race has certainly been Nintendo, actually fulfilling Sony's empty promise of overtaking the Xbox 360's sales numbers as soon as their factories are able to produce enough units. Wiis are finally in stock at enough stores to last more than three seconds on the shelves (I'm not buying into any theories that Nintendo is artificially constraining demand). Like the thousand or so people telling Larry Hryb what to do, I have no delusions that anyone will be listening to me anytime soon. But my word does it feel good to get all this off my chest.