It’s no secret that Xbox hasn’t had a great year. Ever since it launched, it has been almost constantly outsold by Sony’s Playstation 4 thanks to a lower price and a much clearer message focused on gaming. However, Microsoft has been doing all that it can to catch up and those efforts are now starting to pay off.
The company recently announced the Xbox One has surpassed the 10 million sales mark, albeit that’s to stores rather than users, and even EA’s executives have commented on Microsoft’s successful turnaround of the situation.
But the company isn’t done just yet as it doesn’t want to simply catch up to its competitor, it wants to lead the race like it has in the past. And Mike Nichols, VP of Microsoft Studios, says this holiday season is the perfect time for that.
Speaking in a recent interview with the Financial Post, Nichols touched on his company’s efforts of reaching out to consumers and listening to feedback. And talking about the somewhat disappointing sales of the Xbox One until now he said:
If you step back and look at the Xbox One, it’s still very early in the console’s life cycle. The sales of the Xbox One even outpaced Xbox 360 in terms of life cycle. Of course we look forward to doing better and better and we think we’re set up to have one of the best holidays we’ve ever had with Xbox given all the great games we’ve released.
Nichols also mentioned the recent bundles and promotions that have seen the console’s price drop significantly and are credited as the main factors in the sales numbers picking up. He also mentioned that the company will continue to listen to feedback and possibly expand the recent price cuts to other territories.
Finally Nichols was asked about the Kinect, which was prominently featured when the Xbox One launched, but has since taken a much less ostentatious role. Nichols confirmed this change by saying:
Some of our most satisfied customers are people with Kinect. That said, not every game is designed to take advantage of it and you know, hey, over time publishers and developers will determine where to take advantage of it and where not to.
It's obvious Microsoft will let the Kinect be ignored for now, after all beggars can't be choosers, but it doesn't look like the company is willing to drop the peripheral altogether.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this holiday season shapes up for the Xbox One and whether the promotions and bundles Microsoft is pushing will be enough to get users onboard.
Source: Financial Post
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