Microsoft didn’t exactly earn a gold star for its initial Xbox One marketing campaign, ultimately reversing its always-on Internet requirements last month after a plethora of customer disapproval.
In a candid interview with IGN, Xbox exec Marc Whitten admitted that his team did not communicate well enough with its customers.
“The thing that’s really gratifying is that people are excited about the types of features that are possible, and it’s sort of shame on us that we haven’t done as good of a job as we can to make people feel like that’s where we’re headed,” he told IGN.
The Xbox One originally required gamers to log-in once every 24 hours in order to play games. Advantages of the always-on approach included the ability to play games via the cloud, for example when logging into your Xbox Live account at a friend’s house.
It appeared that Microsoft was going to continue demonstrating the value of that approach to win over hard-core gamers for Xbox One — at one point recommending that those without Internet to stick with the Xbox 360 — but surprisingly changed course last month, only requiring Internet during the initial Xbox One set up.
Even though Microsoft “listened” to customers with its policy reversal, there are many who actually liked the original always-on guidelines and are petitioning in hopes of convincing Microsoft to “give us back the Xbox One we were promised at E3.”
Whitten told IGN that Family Sharing, an original policy that would have allowed gamers in one household to share games, could be restored if there’s enough demand.
He reiterated that Microsoft’s key for the Xbox One, despite a heavy focus on entertainment, is the “core gamers.”
“They’re the people that have built Xbox and Xbox Live,” he told IGN. “That’s the place where we need to do a better job showing up, and we need to engage more.”
Previously on GeekWire: Xbox One: Microsoft scores points for flexibility, loses some for credibility … What’s next for Xbox? Ballmer in charge in buildup to Xbox One launch
