Requiem for a Pistol (to shoot MSFT in the helmet)

"Why did Live have to f*ck with my Halo?"

Is it any wonder why MSFT is losing the gaming battle? Why would you alienate your lead users? The people who test your product before the general public gets upset with bugs. The people who push your technology to the limit and help you build a better product? The people who spread the gospel to the world (FREE of CHARGE)?

I can understand employing the regimented approach with their bread and butter corporate community....you know....word, excel, power point, and all the other tools "required" for corporate productivity. But an XBOX? How the hell can Microsoft beat Sony with superb business decisions like this?


Joe Gamer: "You are RUINING THE LITTLE RESPECT YOU HAVE LEFT!"

Rule number 1: The gaming market is not the corporate productivity software market. Don't fight the gamer!

Like most diehard gamers I was one of the first guys on the original Xbox band wagon. I opened the box and played the only game that came with my console, Halo. At that exact moment, I was a true Xbox believer. I never bought another game for the first 2 years and played Halo until my eyes were bloodshot red. It was a problem...(or so my therapist said). If you've never played the original Halo, you've not a gamer..matter of fact....you've never played a video game.

Halo completely revolutionized the gaming market!
(Microsoft even bought Bungie because of this one game's success!)

The game was so enthralling.....we had to play more often, we had to play better people, we had to play online. However, MSFT did not support playing online. So what did we do.....we modded our xbox with chameleon chips and connected our boxes manually. This was before Gamespy or any other peer to peer gaming site. No slick user interface, not maps, not chat, you had to connect your xbox to your pc and use a linux boot-up disc to find other IPs that wanted to join your game. To "chat" you had to use another PC to find gamers/hosts on ICQ before you booted up the game. (Shout out to the Motley's, J and X! First on the block to make it happen.)

Now that I think about it, it was quite archaic, but it worked. We were playing Hang 'em High with people from all over the world. Even with the lag and hosting advantage (early Halo players know what I'm talking about) it was a revolutionary experience. I was playing a game at home...on a console...connected to the internet...talking $hit to some guys in Canada!

The community that evolved was ridiculous. Clans were forming, challenges were made, and LAN parties were popping up all over. People were doing ridiculous things in the games....things the game designers never even knew were possible. It was a great time for Xbox's penetration into the PlayStation market share. People were not buying Xbox for Xbox, we all wanted to play Halo!

All of the early Xbox innovations came from gamers taking the Xbox to the limit. Adding a hard drive, adding software to manage files, creating a multi media player, making it wireless.....all this stuff was out before MSFT even thought about building it. How could that be? You can't fight the gamer! Instead of fighting, MSFT should embrace innovation and let people build the product/games they want.

So what does MSFT do. They "steal" all of the innovation from "hackers" and incorporate it into the new and improved Xbox 360. The 360 launch was combined with the release of Halo 2. Boy was I was ready! I had my eBay auction ready (no time to stand in line) and paid ~$750 to be the first to play Halo 2. What a disappointment!

Not only did they kill the game with the bs maps and weapons (no more pistol shots); they completely bastardized the Live experience by commercializing some functionality and removing others. On top of that, MSFT was telling me that I had to PAY to play with other people. GTFOH! I just paid 2x retail for the game and console, I pay $150/month for high-speed internet and MSFT wants me to pay for Live! That's like AOL trying to get me to pay for a inferior browser. Ha!

I have not played my Xbox 360 since.

Why all this background info? It's simple. MSFT had the best thing going for them. Huge penetration into Sony's market, great staple game in Halo, avid die-hard gamers, and a great user generated road map for success. By abandoning the early adopters, MSFT managed to destroy most of the value that was was created......in record time.

Don't take my word for it. Ask any "former" Halo player what they think of MSFT and Xbox Live now?

Microsoft may have dropped the ball in gaming.....good thing they are dominating Google and others on the search front, the ad front, the web application front, the recruiting front, the video front, the social networking front, the it's cool to be a geek front, the wall street growth story front.........help! I'm running out of fronts....Ha!

Just watch this video and Halo-Union will rap to you why Xbox Live is dead. (Lyrics!)