Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has revealed that the launch of the new Xbox Experience will see Microsoft spend more money in marketing in advertising this holiday than they have ever done so in the history of the Xbox.
Greenberg also went on to claim that Microsoft has the biggest and broadest game lineup, which rounds out the appeal of the Xbox 360.
To quote: But the "re-launch" of the entire Xbox 360 experience will also be accompanied with in-store outreach, says Greenberg.
"We will be launching the largest marketing campaign in the history of Xbox," he says. "We will be spending more money in marketing in advertising this holiday than we ever have in the history of our business."
Finally, what Greenberg claims is the industry's "biggest and broadest" games lineup rounds out the appeal, he says. "We have had some broad-appeal games in the past, but we have never had a year where we had... Think about the music genre and all... More »
September marked the Xbox 360's best month of 2008, in terms of sales in the U.S — its performance in Japan hasn't been too bad either.
Following a price cut that made the 360 the least expensive current generation console on the market, the company moved 347,200 units to American consumers. While it wasn't enough to supplant the Wii as the best selling console in the country, it was enough to beat the competition from Sony.
Kotaku spoke to Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, just after NPD sales numbers hit to get his take. Unsurprisingly, he seemed rather pleased with the company's recent hardware successes.
"We expect to continue our price advantage over the PlayStation 3 for a long time," Greenberg told us, pointing to the $199 price tag of the company's entry level Arcade console, assuming that Sony would issue no pre-holiday price drops. "And we feel confident that we'll outsell the PS3 this holiday season in North... More »
Recently, XBox 360 product manager, Aaron Greenberg, indicated in an interview that the Blu-ray is not the future. He also goes on to take stabs at Sony for some of its decisions regarding the PS3.
Greenberg stated in an interview with Major Nelson, that the Blu-ray is no DVD. He also indicated that the Blu-ray format could be the next UMD. I assume he is attempting to correlate UMD as a failed format for movies. An odd comparison considering that the UMD is a Sony PSP-only format. I assume you could also say then, that the Nintendo DS cartridge is a failed format as well.
Greenberg said: “We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience,.. We believe that we shouldn’t force consumers to pay for things they don’t want. We also believe that the future’s digital, and that’s why we’ve invested in a massive library of entertainment content.”
This supports my recent story detailing how Microsoft’s nickel and dime bu... More »
Xbox Group product manager Aaron Greenberg has refuted reports that Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp will develop a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, claiming owners of the console would not be interested in such an add-on.
"We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience," he told Major Nelson. "We believe that we shouldn't force people to pay for things they don't want."
Following the commercial failure of the HD-DVD format Microsoft decided to invest in, Greenberg also stated that Microsoft's position on high-definition movie and TV content is currently centred around digital distribution.
"We've invested in a massive library of entertainment content. That's why we're bringing things like Netflix to members in the US, that's why we're growing our library in Europe, that's why we're adding all types of entertainment experiences around the world.
"And Blu-ray: who knows? I'll tell you one thing: if you look... More »
To sum up, the debut of Spore was met with ample applause and plenty of discussion about the Johnny-play-god element of the evolutionary process. All in good fun, of course.
The last several days of Spore’s official real-world introduction have also been chock-full of a pretty astonishing level of spite leveled at Electronic Arts for presenting buyers of the $50 title with restrictive DRM. It’s been reported that EA has allowed for a total of 3 unique activations per consumer for use of the product.
The backlash has been so pronounced that, despite the critical acclaim for the gameplay itself, the game ranks among the most lowly reviewed video games listed in the Amazon store. Some 2,016 out of 2,127 reviewers have chosen to give it a single star. The juxtaposition of this figure against its current #4 sales rate is remarkable in and of itself.
This fact is only compounded by Spore’s performance not only on store shelves but the proliferati... More »
Following the release of April NPD data, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg says that he respects his competitors, but claims Sony in particular is getting "squeezed out" of the console war.
Below are the excerpts from a phone interview from Thursday with director of product management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Aaron Greenberg, who comments on the sales of GTA IV, the fight for market share and how Microsoft still doesn't consider the Wii a direct competitor.
First, there are the hardware figures. GTA IV didn't seem to move consoles in the few days in April that it was on sale. We didn't see very impressive hardware figures from the two platforms that the game was available on. Will we see the hardware lift in May?
I think May will be a better barometer for GTA's impact on hardware sales. I think GTA is the type of franchise that is unique and does perform differently. It reaches a different type of customer than other big titles in our industry... More »
Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg says "the days of Sony snowing the consumers and the press are over," that the company has failed to deliver on numerous promises, and challenges Sony's latest European PS3 sales figures.
"We have been fighting Sony's promises from the day we entered the market," Greenberg told Destructoid. "Three years ago at E3 they showed what PS3 games would supposedly look like with the Killzone 2 video, that we are now learning will ship four years later. That means that we will have shipped Gears of War and Gears of War 2 before they can even get Killzone out the door.
"Think back to GDC 2007 when Sony promised to leap ahead in online with the Sony Home unveil. Here we are two years later and multiple delays for a product that appears to have little to no buzz. Where are the achievements? The friends list integration across all games? Where is the long-promised video store? Where are all the other products using and networking with the... More »
After several days of internal consideration Microsoft executives have said that they will not be producing a Blu ray Xbox 360. Instead the Company is working on a brand new gaming and entertainment solution that will replace the current Xbox 360.
The device will go head to head with a new home console from Sony that is both a gaming console and content management system. It is not expected to be launched untill late in 2009 or early 2010. Key to the new Microsoft offering according to a development engineer is IP content which Microsoft believes is the future for both gaming and home entertainment.
During the past 12 months and at the recent CES Expo in Las Vegas, both Sony and Microsoft have met with global telecommunication companies to discuss home gateways and the delivery of IP content into the home and their new gaming and entertainment consoles.
In Australia senior Telstra executives have said that the future is not Blu ray but Blu ray qua... More »
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