Let’s be honest here, it’s raining s*** on Microsoft at the minute. With ‘always online’ rumors circulating, Adam Orth dealing with it, PS4 gaining momentum unchallenged and potential hack or service issues; they’re really not having a good time. While it’s fair to say that none, or at least not all, of the terrible things happening could translate to Xbox 3, there is still damage to the Xbox brand that, if not addressed, will only make things more difficult for MS in their struggle against the well-received PS4. However, it seems, like MS themselves, fans of the Xbox have decided to ignore the issue at hand, some even going as far as to say that “all publicity is good publicity”. I’m here to tell you exactly why that’s a complete load of crap, with the use of a couple of analogies.
Let’s start with one for the parents out there...
Babysitting/nannies, there’s a lot to think about when you’re deciding who will be left alone with your precious children for an extended period of time. So, when you’re faced with the decision of Agency A or Agency B, you really need to take everything into consideration. Let’s say both Agency A & B tick all the boxes you need, however, you heard Agency B had a nanny who once shook a baby to death, apparently it was in all the papers. Of course he/she would have been fired and locked up but the damage to the agency’s reputation had been done, you’d obviously go for ‘Agency A’ right? Now, by the logic of “all publicity is good publicity” Agency B would be the most popular around and everyone would use them, which common sense tells you would most likely not be the case. Then there’s dating...
You’re single, in a bar, there’s two girls/guys (or any mix of the two, whatever) who are into you, it’s either one or the other (they definitely aren’t up for a three-way *sigh*). They’re beautiful, witty, everything you want but your friend tells you he’s not sure but he may have slept with one of them back in 09 and had to get treated for the clap afterward. Whether it’s true or not you’re going to go for the one without the ‘history’ right?
In both these cases, reputation, whether factual or not, played a major role in the resulting decisions. Reputation is more powerful than some people think; it can make or break entire companies and even relationships. Once a bad reputation is established it’s very hard to shake and if Microsoft isn’t careful they may end up with one. No gamer (almost) wants to see MS exit the console business but they need to do something to turn around the bad press because, whether you deny it or not, it IS doing damage to their reputation.
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Reputation is something a lot more powerful than a bad publicity. Company like Sony, Ms, etc are not like Hollywood movie star, they are company you have to trust first and buy their product then.
I mean, looks like no one loves the "always online" idea and we read absurd opinion, furious overreaction and tons of useless articles about this possible future, but we need to understand this is NOT a good publicity and for sure this will hurt MS even if the nextbox will not feature the "always online", because now, most of us, just simple dont talk about MS in a good way and the micorsoft's silence is not the best way to have a publicity that build a good reputation.