Microsoft’s David Dennis said they ”don’t have to focus” marketing toward the core, at least not so much. They ”buy disproportionally” to 360.
”The core are going to buy the games, we don’t have to focus on marketing those - well, we do, but those games in a lot of ways will sell themselves because they’re such immersive and intense experiences that the core is going to buy, and buy disproportionally for the Xbox,” Microsoft spokesman Dennis told GamesIndustry.biz.
”It’s a continuation of a strategy we’ve been articulating for a long time, which is that we have a powerful piece of hardware that enables a lot of different experiences,” he added. ”Let’s start with the core users to really get their attention and get them invested and committed to us as a platform.”
”Then as we look to broaden to new audiences, we have the hardware capacity and technology innovation to continue to evolve the experience, whether that’s by bringing things like Facebook, Netflix and Twitter to give people more reasons to turn the console on, or with Natal in the future, with a more social, casual and interactive controller-free gaming experience that something like Natal brings.”
The fickle casual gamer proves much more in a hunt for broadening the consumer base. ”Obviously you don’t talk to those types of customers the same way, but we’ve been talking about games beyond the core and really bringing people in,” said Dennis.
”Last year we had TV creatives running over the holidays that was really focused on Netflix and Rock Band and different non-core gaming experiences.
But I think as we look to Natal and the types of experiences it’s going to enable, there’s going to be both what some might call core experiences as well as casual game experiences that are easy to jump in and play, that are going to do great for Natal.”
Are you an easily sold core, or a fickle casual? Project Natal is Microsoft’s ‘ace in the hole’ for the casual gamer market, or so they hope it is…
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