My Wife, The Casual Gamer, Reacts to: The Xbox One Announcement

FrontBurnr: By now you should know that my wife doesn’t keep up on the latest news in the world of video games. Yesterday after I got home from work, she triumphantly told me about the announcement of a new game, only to disappointingly notice that I already knew. I decided that she needed some more bad news in her life and should see the new Xbox One announcement, so she knows what I will be talking about and spending money on later this year.

[urwifeminder]

Ha funny article but so many questions she throws would make my head spin my fiancée is heavily pregnant and was sleeping as it was 3am here I enjoyed the show as well. Edit< congrats we have 5 weeks to go all the best its getting very exciting.

[agentxk]

She is 37 weeks pregnant. Head was spinning, although some of this was abridged.

She is right about the voice commands though. I can see shenannigans

[Pintheshadows]

I'm going to hide outside peoples houses and shout through their open windows 'Xbox off' in the middle of a gaming session.

And that is a game exclusive to Xbox One.

[Kaneda]

Don't get marry... run and hide (so her dad can't kill you)!

[warewolfSS]

this is news on this site?

when did it turn into such garbage..

grown men arguing about a toy that ANYONE can buy..
grow the hell up.

[admiralvic]

Who called this news? This is an opinion piece and this isn't my opinion, it's literally listed as such on N4G.

[negative]

Here's a news flash: this site SUCKS.

[Pintheshadows]

I'm not entirely sure why you are here then. If I don't like something I tend to avoid it. At least that is what normal people do.

[warewolfSS]

yeah it wasn't this bad years ago. these people are delusional like these gaming companies are fighting for them, not their money.

i had the salesman at toys r us today tell me that the new xbox was gonna be 600 dollars when its released from his sources, and how he's telling his friends to not bother playing it.

holy shit people . what is wrong with you . if you have more than one account and comment on it YOU HAVE SERIOUS ISSUES

YOU WERENT BORN WITH SUPERPOWERS, YOU BOUGHT A PLAYSTATION..

[MysticStrummer]

"yeah it wasn't this bad years ago"

Yes it was, but it favored a different console. Since you think N4G is so much worse now, I can guess which console is your favorite.

[3-4-5]

so because @negative's life sucks...he takes it out on everyone on this board.

How emo and original.

[DragonKnight]

Ladies and Gentlemen, these are the people Microsoft is targeting and the reason gaming will suffer for it.

[ThatsGaming]

Yes, Microsoft is target these people, but how does gaming suffer because of it?

Nothing shown at the conference shows that the games will suffer.

To me, they just showed off a bunch of features that I won't use... But, my wife and kids might use it which will make it easier for me to sell my wife that I should buy the device.

[rainslacker]

It's an interesting look at how a casual may view this stuff, but I question it's validity. First of all, I hope he was paraphrasing his wife's reactions...if not she must be the most annoying person in the world, no offense to her or the author intended...I just don't know anyone who actually talks like that. On top of that, if she actually did talk that much during the reveal, then did she even have a chance to hear everything that was being said? In my opinion, if you have to ask a bunch of clarifying questions to what is being said, then the reveal was not doing it's job if this was indeed MS intention to target this audience.

Other than that, given the followup comments on the article, she seems to be a somewhat moderate gamer, and not truly casual. She knows about games, and understands some of the things that are going on. However the author did already say he was getting one, and he outright called the DRM practices "rumors", despite them being pretty much confirmed.

I think most casuals watching this would see it like most of us do. The features are cool, but are they necessary or worth the price? She apparently even asked some decent questions on how it would work given their situation. Wii sucked in the casuals by offering them something cool with a low point of entry. I doubt that's the feeling casuals are going to get with the Xbox, particularly since none of the stuff shown was really new to people with the advent of smart TV's and devices that let you control everything already...not unlike how Nintendo's tablet controller hasn't sparked the casuals imagination.

MS can either really push the casual and lose the core, or really push the core and lose the casual. It's really a no win situation for them. Trying to do both...which is apparently what they are doing...is just not working for them.

I'd honestly be more interested in her reactions to some of these rumors than the actual reveal, as they will have more affect on the casual than most people may be aware.

[Rushing_Punch]

In the comments on the site he explained it is paraphrased. I know the piece is a series, I asked them to do a reaction to Surgeon Simulator and he told me they would.

Shoot him a comment and see if he will do a reaction piece to the rumors.

As far as the 'facts', MS did specifically deny those as just proposals. Unfortunately IGN and pals took a false start

[GraveLord]

Honey, why does this giant corporation think we can't work a TV remote? Why do they want to spy on us with Kinect and harrass us with annoying TV notifications while we're watching Glee?

[sway_z]

My girlfriend and I watched the reveal together as we were thrilled with anticipation to see what MS would bring to the table....she liked the live action bits of that remedy game...but with all the TV/Net stuff, she said to me..

'...but we do all that on the ipad tho babe'

Sums it up really

#xboxgohome

[rainslacker]

Women tend to be more practical than men. One commenter posted that for the casual to have this in their home, it's likely because the gamer wants it there.

[warewolfSS]

i dont get why either system would want the other system to go away and close the competition down.

[sway_z]

You been living in a sock??

..MS don't consider mere games consoles as their competition anymore...nah, they're going after every TV network, Cable Provider and Music Service on Earth...

That's...

Apple
Sky
Virgin Media
Amazon
Google

All these companies will fight tooth and nail for marketshare...and they're just some of the major players.

I can't see any one of them handing it over to MS. MS just entered an even more over saturated market.

Sheer Lunacy ;/

[jc48573]

gamers becoming extinct. ain't that sad.

[SOULJER]

My lady with her voice turns on the lights, TV, Blu-ray and closes the curtains. All with her nexus.

[its_JEFF]

Interesting article... but she doesn't seem like a "casual" gamer, she seems to be a little more than that. Not a hardcore gamer, but not a casual either. She seems to have adopted the hobbies of her husband.

BTH I think this is exactly the type of person that MS is targeting. They know hardcore gamers will buy it, but it's those casual gamers that they want to get. That market that Wii captured. How much of that Wii market is willing to move over to X-One is anybodies guess.

MS is banking this idea heavily on convenience. They've got a tough road ahead of them. How much Google TV, Roku, TiVo etc. users are willing to give up their current platform for a new one? Another road block for MS is price and iteration. How much is a X-One and how often will a new one come out? 5/6/7 yrs? Where as these other things like Google TV is cheaper and almost come out on a yearly basis.

[agentxk]

She is probably a casual console gamer. She loves games like Sims, Animal Crossing, Sim City and Lego games. She doesn't want to play with people and used to really enjoy facebook games.

With that said, it's hard not to be in the know when your husband works in the industry.

[cleft5]

Cool wife. I think she pointed out some of the main reasons that I didn't like it, but other people will. If you are heavy into TV shows and sports then this is going to fit in well with your life. I am not, but I know people who will love this console.

[ghostrider32]

PS2, Xbox, Gamecube era- Last great era of gaming. Last era of gaming where the games didn't try to hold your hand. And last era where all we had to do was beat the game to unlock the extra content.