The XBox Thread - Page 194

Now, less than two months later, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Mattrick will be leaving the company and heading to a top position social gaming giant Zynga. Mattrick may even arrive as Zynga's new CEO, replacing founder and current CEO Mark Pincus. While the move is not official and only based on "multiple sources close to the situation" for the time being, WSJ says an announcement could be coming as soon as this afternoon.

Zynga announced today that Don Mattrick would be its new CEO, effective July 8. This is a great opportunity for Don, and I wish him success. Don’s directs will report to me and will continue to drive the day-to-day business as a team, particularly focused on shipping Xbox One this holiday.

Since joining IEB more than six years ago, Don and his team have accomplished much. Xbox Live members grew from 6 million to 48 million. Xbox 360 became the No. 1 selling console in North America the past two years. We introduced Kinect and have sold more than 24 million sensors. We released fantastic games, and, most importantly, we expanded Xbox to go beyond great gaming to deliver all the entertainment people want — sports, music, movies, live television and much more.

In the past month, the IEB team showed for the first time here on our Redmond campus, and again at E3, how we are going to continue to transform entertainment with Xbox One. I am incredibly proud of the work and vision culminating in Xbox One.

I’m particularly excited about how Xbox pushes forward our devices and services transformation by bringing together the best of Microsoft. The consoles are incredible all-in-one devices with built-in services that consumers love, including Bing, Xbox Live, Internet Explorer, SkyDrive and Skype. And, just as important, Xbox Games, Xbox Video, Xbox Music and SmartGlass light up Windows PCs, tablets and phones.

Thank you, Don, for setting us on a path to completely redefine the entertainment industry. The strong leadership team at IEB and their teams are well positioned to deliver the next-generation entertainment console, as well as transformative entertainment experiences, long into the future.

Steve

Microsoft Japan held a press briefing on the the management policies of fiscal year 2014 today, and the journalists in attendance immediately noticed that things didn’t bode too well for the release of Xbox One in the country when the console wasn’t really mentioned during the briefing itself. Yet the Japanese gaming site 4Gamer still managed to grab an interview and to ask what’s up with Microsoft’s upcoming console in the archipelago of the rising sun.
As part of the interview Microsoft Japan President and CEO Yasuyuki Higuchi confirmed that the Xbox One won’t land on the Japanese shelves any time soon:

For the launch of Xbox One Japan is a Tier 2 country and not a Tier 1 country, so it’ll come with the second wave, that will be delayed a little bit [compared to North America].

When the interviewer pressed him to confirm that the console won’t be launched in 2013 he did just that:

That’s right. It’ll launch after the Tier 1 markets.

Luckily, according to Higuchi-san, Japanese gamers should not have to wait too long after the western release:

It won’t be delayed too much from the North American release.

Microsoft’s executives knew they were walking on eggshells as they talked to the press, since the Xbox brand isn’t exactly popular in Japan, and when the reporter concluded the interview telling Microsoft Vice President and Executive Officer of the Consumer & Partner Group Haruaki Kayama that he’d wait for further information on Xbox One soon, he responded laughing:

Yes, so please don’t report too negatively.

One thing is for sure, while Goichi Suda thinks Japan will soon embrace Xbox, the new console doesn’t exactly seem off to a strong start in the country. At the very least, it’ll be late.

On July 03 2013 04:01 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
had to google this zynga. never heared about it before. but seems some shitty facebook game site? always avoided fb like plague so guess thats the reason. def a really.. "uninviting" site from first look...


btw is there some confirmation about the rumored hardware problems/shortage?

On June 30 2013 13:58 Nilrem wrote:


[...]Out of curiosity, has anyone here worked on the kinect before? Since it seemed to have been used quite a bit in a hacked former, I wonder if anyone on TL has been doing something like that.

On July 03 2013 05:04 TheRabidDeer wrote:
Zynga is on a level that is possibly worse than EA, and their company is crashing hard.
They dont make new games, they copy games that already exist:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/08/08/a-photo-retrospective-of-the-games-developers-claim-zynga-has-cloned/

On July 03 2013 08:22 rezoacken wrote:


Games like Farmville are only based on consumer psychology. Every stupid mechanic they are based on is there to create an addiction and encourage the player to buy more and more. I usually have no problems with cash shops in most mmo or developers trying to get a little extra with DLC but these games, farmville, stronghold kingdoms etc... man, that makes me puke.

On July 10 2013 22:51 Fruscainte wrote:
http://www.change.org/petitions/xbox-one-give-us-back-the-original-xbox-one

Probably the most blatant form of Stockholm's Syndrome I've ever seen.

Do these people not realize that you can share your discs with your entire family anyways?

On July 10 2013 22:51 Fruscainte wrote:
http://www.change.org/petitions/xbox-one-give-us-back-the-original-xbox-one

Probably the most blatant form of Stockholm's Syndrome I've ever seen.

Do these people not realize that you can share your discs with your entire family anyways?

On July 12 2013 18:07 BlueBird. wrote:
My family lives on the other side of the continent, and so do my friends . That feature was one of the main reasons I would get an Xbox one, and it's gone.

On July 12 2013 18:07 BlueBird. wrote:


My family lives on the other side of the continent, and so do my friends . That feature was one of the main reasons I would get an Xbox one, and it's gone.

The Microsoft employee says that family members would have had access to the full game, or whatever they could get through in 15-45 minutes. After time expired, they would then be prompted with a “Buy Now” option.

When your family member accesses any of your games, they’re placed into a special demo mode.