It's no secret that Microsoft had a rough E3. They really tried their best to soften the $500 blow (and Sony's knockout blow really didn't help matters) with a ton of great looking games, but it's obvious from the now famous Xbox One-80 that it didn't help their pre-order numbers. The really staggering thing to me is how bad they've been at expressing their points so far. It's like they don't consider what a huge part perception plays in a consumer's purchasing decision.

The internet requirements could have made for some very interesting changes in the gaming landscape (and shot Gamespot... sorry, Gamestop in the knee) but they didn't take anytime telling us, the purchasers, what benefit we could have reaped from this. All the communication from Microsoft seemed to be, "These are what the new rules are, deal with it." And I would like Kinect 2 to work out well, but no one's showed me a reason why I need it or explained why I can't just use a headset for the voice commands. 8GB of RAM and you can't allocate some space for the console to recognize me giving commands through a microphone on my head?... Which you're not including despite the fact that you, yourself, Microsoft, have said it's a "must have" for online gaming?

Today's launch of the XBL Gold free games service is another example of such bad communication. I know, I know, it's not Defense Grid, it's Fable III, but that's not what was even remotely mentioned at E3. Neither of those games were even brought up this E3 when talking about this service. All that anyone heard was Assassin's Creed II and Halo 3, which is why some parts of the internet are blowing up today. I've heard not great reviews about Fable III (the endgame is tedious and it gets you there without much warning) while ACII is among one of the defining games of this generation and Halo 3 was a spectacular way to close out Master Chief's story and deliver on the cliffhanger of Halo 2. Fuck, I miss dual wielding in a Halo game...

Why all these blunders? Why haven't they learned a thing from all this? You can't keep giving out mixed messages and being cagy about "Assassin's Creed and Halo coming in the next few months" and not saying what is launching with the service. Stop saying that things that are sold separately are "must-haves." I hope the XBone does all right so that the production lines can get used to making them and the price can go down, but damn, Microsoft, control the conversation a little bit and you may be able to implement some of your ideas later in the console's life on the NeXtbox (Xbox Too?). Okay rant over. Fuck, it's hot.

Well Microsoft is a corporation. Corporations are usually run by go getter business men, who did whatever necessary to get promoted.(note the business men part) Once you are living the good life up on their ivory tower, you start loosing perspective on things. That's why every so often a company will need a major restructuring. Either the major players are so out of touch with the evolving market or over bloated arrogance acquired from years of success.

In the end, they will adjust to the market/consumer's demand or become irrelevance. Sony is going through this as we speak, and they are very lucky to have people who are clearly passionate about games as well as being businessmen. Microsoft is about to do the same. We can only hope they get good people in the right place as well.

The PR stuff are all by products of murky leadership. Also I don't buy that whole "Microsoft mess up the messaging, so stupid internet rage on them" bullshit. We got the message loud and clear and a lot of people hated it. Nothing more to it than that, they had a shit policies and they got burned. Based on the gamestop taking 4/1 ps4 to xbox and my own friends(Gamestop regional manager), they got burned bad.

Matrrick did a nice bit if damage early on to a point MS even said they knew he was harming them.

I'm not saying the overblown internet rage is justified, far from it. I just wish the messaging hadn't been aimed at publishers worried about used game sales and more targeted at people who are going to buy the thing. If there had been a tangible, useful reason to have an XBone connected all the time, I don't think gamers would have had a problem with it. Every gaming podcast I listen to has had innumerable theories about the possible applications of an always connected console since the One-80; Microsoft gave us one, stopping used game sales and left it there.

@the_laughing_man: I imagine this conversation around the Microsoft water cooler. "Hey, um... Don... I hear Zynga's hiring." *extends hand* "Best of luck bud."

The other week there just before the DRM 180 and after the PR disaster show of E3. It was leaked that Steve Balmer would be restructuring Microsoft mainly the entertainment division.

He called in advisors....not executives. Which meant it was to advise on how to restructure the Execs. Which Don Mattrick falls into that line.

So I am pretty certain that Don was given notice a week ago at the same time as Xbox 180, with Zynga going down in stock and price after going Public. Zynga is happy enough to pull Don in. High class Microsoft CEO? He may not be a PR dude, he is a business guy and Zynga needs a business guy as the current CEO is swamped in bad rep, legal and other shenanigans.

Don....who is going to take him after demonstrating how out of touch he has shown, with all the bad PR he caused on his own. He didn't have much choice except to go to Zynga.

Currently Xbox division is sailing with Steve Balmer at the wheel. This dosnt mean its bad straight away. However it does mean that if Xbox NEEDS to do something drastic he is the guy thats going to throw down the anchor and make an impossible powerslide with a battleship like Microsoft, he has done it once (xbox 180) he can do it again....just can the ship take it?

PR wise...their fucked!

I think MS's problem with the X-One is that it came across as not being run by business men. It came across by a gaggle of geeks who are excited about the tech, but do not have the business savvy to relay the message to a wider audience.