“A lot of people look upon Microsoft as the company behind Windows and Office,” says Relentless co-founder
Though Microsoft has made strides in recent times to widen the appeal of the Xbox 360, the company will struggle to replicate the ‘enormous’ brand presence that Sony enjoys.
That’s according to Relentless co-founder David Amor, speaking in the second part of his interview with Develop.
On the subject of the lucrative casual market – which Nintendo has dominated with the Wii and Sony has enjoyed with EyeToy and SingStar – Amor believes that Microsoft have many challenges facing them:
“My feeling is the PlayStation, as a brand, remains enormous. That’s something that Microsoft is going to have a problem with.”
“I think that the Xbox 360 has reached a lot of people that it was always going to reach – core gamers – and outside of that key demographic is a lot of people that look upon Microsoft as the company behind Windows and Office,” he added.
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“They’re clearly going after the wider market with their Natal technology, but it will take great games to draw them in. People bought a Wii for Wii Sports, not for the Wiimote.”
“PlayStation means video games, and it’s a cool brand, so I wouldn’t underestimate how much this works in Sony’s favour.”
Amor believes that the PS3 “will eventually take on” the casual market.
“I know everyone is looking forward to a lower price point, which will help,” he said.
He added that the PS3 needs enough titles targeted towards the wider market.
"There are games in that category that serve that audience well, but I think there needs to be enough for consumers to buy it for more reasons than, say, Killzone 2 or Metal Gear Solid.
"I’m genuinely not saying there’s a lack of them, but there needs to be a good portfolio of games for everybody to get that wider appeal.”
The final part of our interview with David Amor can be found here.
I think it's somewhat true. But evidently this hasn't helped Sony from falling in the third place... why then?
I'm not too sure if I agree with him. More and more I'm seeing "xbox" referenced in popular media when there's a mention of gaming so to me it looks like Microsoft is making great ground in being what people think of when they think of gaming.
I disagree with so much of this article I don't know where to start.
The xbox is wide open to the casual market with the massive list of titles available for download on x-box arcade.
Citing titles like i-toy and singstar as casual game greats is a bit off too, they were both titles which hit the PS2 not the PS3 market. I can't think of any casual games on the PS3 - the only mass market appeal would be games like "Little Big Planet" - as a consumer I'd say the only thing that the Sony Brand says to me these days is expensive.
I do agree though that MS will have to leverage Natal with some decent games though - a control system might sell a console like the wii but even on there, there's been some pretty dire games, which the unique control system simply gets in the way.
