Dante Posted December 28, 2007 Posted December 28, 2007 Top 10 Blunders Of 2007 by next-gen.biz There are certain events of 2007 that industry folks would just as soon not ever hear about again--so here they are... #10 – The Non-Elite Elite Heading into mid-2007, Microsoft had a problem. Everyone agreed that its Xbox 360 had the best games and the slickest online system, but the system just wasn't selling up to expectations. Fortunately, this problem had a solution: cut costs, reduce the price, and pack in a game. Microsoft ignored this solution. Instead of cutting costs, Microsoft kept the same expensive hardware design and then added even more features and jacked up the price. Now, for only $20 shy of the price of a PlayStation 3 you could own a wireless-less, HD-DVD-less system with a larger hard drive and that thunderous Xbox 360 fan noise. To its credit, it did have a sweet black paint job... #9 – This Heading Guaranteed 100% Free of Wii Puns Nintendo has had a tremendous year. Everything it touches turns to gold, it seems. Yet, they also have made a critical miscalculation: they have undersupplied the Wii hardware for over a year. If we take their production throttling denials at face value, the only reasonable conclusion is that they simply haven't believed their own success. Seriously, what else could it be? One's imagination runs wild imagining Nintendo's twisted logic: First Quarter '07: Sold 1 million Wii systems in the U.S. and six different titles in the top 20 charts. We could increase production, but what if this is just left over demand from the holiday? Second Quarter '07: Sold yet another million Wii systems in the U.S. and another six titles in the top 20 charts. Still, the trolls on NeoGAF say the Wii is just a fad, so better not increase production just yet. Third Quarter '07: Sure, we sold another 1.3 million Wii systems, but what if we make another million and no one buys them? What are we doing to do with all that extra stock? We'll be ruined! Keep production where it is. Fourth Quarter '07: Oh shi... People are still buying it? MAKE AS MANY AS YOU CAN AND DO IT NOW! Now an analyst has revealed a price for Nintendo's commercial conservatism: $1.3 billion lost this holiday due to Wii shortages. Damn, that stings. If it's any consolation, Nintendo, your former tormentor – Sony – will probably also lose $1.3 billion this holiday, but for precisely the opposite reason... #8 – We've Got a SKU Just for You! Remember when the two Xbox 360 models were announced back in 2005? All the pissing and moaning about two models with different specifications – the Xbox 360 Premium with a hard drive and wireless controllers and the emasculated Xbox 360 Core. It was a lot of fun. Phil Harrison famously said of Sony's PlayStation 3 plans, “I think we wouldn't take that [multiple SKU] strategy. We wouldn't create confusion”. Oh, the shame! In just the first year Sony has marketed four different models of PlayStation 3. It launched with two versions – the 20Gb and 60Gb models – and then introduced an 80Gb model in July and a 40Gb model in October. Given the current rate of hardware revisions and Sony's stated goal of a 10-year console cycle, there will be no fewer than 40 PlayStation 3 models by the time the platform retires. As each model cuts features, analysts expect the final version to be just a stylish, shiny black box that does nothing more than take tens and twenties in through the disc slot. #7 – Surprise! Zombies! The corporate VP of Microsoft Game Studios, Shane Kim, had a secret. Each morning he chuckled quietly to himself, knowing it would make a huge splash at E3 in 2007. Then a Game Informer interview ruined it. You can't really improve on the original, so just read for yourself: Kim: I think one of the most important, subtle announcements at the Xbox 360 briefing is that Resident Evil is coming to Xbox 360. Yes, it’s from Capcom, who’s been a great supporter of us. GI: But we knew that two years ago. Kim: What? GI: Resident Evil. It was shown at TGS two years ago. Kim: No, but coming to Xbox 360. GI: Yeah. It was at the press event. Kim: I don’t think so. GI: I’m positive. I was there. Kim: Really? GI: It was shown at both press conferences. Kim: That RE5 was coming to…? GI: Yep. Kim: I’m going to have to confirm that. That was supposed to be the big announcement. Most industry Q&As are glorified spin doctor sessions, and that's why this particular interview is so refreshing. Reading it and imagining Kim's bravado crumbling as he realizes his big secret wasn't a secret to anyone except him – it's just priceless. #6 – Sony Exec Offers to Buy PS3s When SCEA executive VP Jack Tretton speaks, everyone listens. Sometimes this works out, sometimes not. In his January 2007 interview with Electronic Gaming Monthly, it most certainly did not. In response to reports of PlayStation 3 systems sitting unsold on store shelves, Tretton famously replied: “If you can find a PS3 anywhere in North America that's been on shelves for more than five minutes, I'll give you 1200 bucks for it." If people on the street can see that the systems aren't moving, then Tretton should have known as well. Still, his ill-timed boast isn't unique – it's merely part of the larger hubristic posture Sony has assumed for far too long. It would be easier to forgive him if he'd learned his lesson, but even as late as July Tretton was calling the Wii a lollipop while comparing the PlayStation 3 to a lobster and steak meal. And in November he said the PS3 was only down 1-0 in the second inning of a baseball game. Let's hope there isn't a mercy rule that calls the game early. #5 – Alone Against the Empire Right before the Game Developers Conference keynote, one of the most prominent videogame blogs, Kotaku, published a rumor about an as-yet-unannounced PlayStation 3 online service dubbed PlayStation Home. Kotaku attempted to verify the details but Sony refused to comment. Further, Sony requested – then demanded – that Kotaku not publish the story. Kotaku published their information anyway, with appropriate journalistic caveats. In response, Sony sent an email blackballing Kotaku. Kotaku published that too. The nerd rage backlash against Sony was immediate and intense. Rants were pounded on in forums, blogs posted unflattering Photoshopped images of Phil Harrison, and all five PlayStation 3 owners agreed to return their systems. Later that same day, Dave Karraker, the senior director of corporate communications at SCEA, made nice with Kotaku again and even invited them back to Sony's GDC events. Like nothing else in recent memory, this event warned game companies that they still need the videogame media. The solution, of course, is to get all those videogame journalists under a non-disclosure agreement as soon as possible, and keep them there. Regrettably, that plan appears to have worked. #4 – Game Over Gerstmann When a big-budget game gets a negative review on a site plastered with adverts for said game and the reviewer is subsequently sacked, you can't really be faulted for initially thinking the events are all related. Fortunately the Greeks had a saying for just this moment: post hoc ergo propter hoc. For those of you who don't speak Roman, that means “after moneyhat, therefore because of moneyhat.” Which is all to say, we don't know for sure how much Jeff Gerstmann's Kane & Lynch review figured into his late November firing. Granted, it did look a mite bit suspicious. The Kane & Lynch promotion that Eidos had purchased on GameSpot – decorating the margins of the site with Kane & Lynch graphics – ended just after the news broke that Gerstmann was fired. Then CNet, the parent company for GameSpot, hurt its own credibility by issuing uninformative non-denial denials for almost a whole week. In the meantime, websites and forums worked overtime generating rumors, unflattering GIFs, and raw nerd rage. One possible explanation that has nothing to do with moneyhats: a new administration at GameSpot wanted to clean house a bit and Gerstmann seemed like the kind of guy who could be let go and – with all his industry experience – land squarely on his feet. If indeed this happened, then the problem isn't so much in the idea itself but in the execution and timing. Imagine if GameSpot had given Gerstmann a fitting send-off in early 2008, complete with a retrospective of his tenure at the site. Given reports of GameSpot Complete subscription cancellations and the site's tarnished reputation, you can bet that future firings will be handled with a lighter touch. #3 – It's Just a Toy Guitar and Some Music After two iterations of hardware and software, you'd think that the people behind Guitar Hero III and Rock Band could make packages free of glitches. You'd think it, but you'd be wrong. Let's take Guitar Hero III first. While the PlayStations and Xboxes are, shall we say, experienced the Wii was the first Nintendo system to get a Guitar Hero product. The reviewers gave it a good grade and gamers seemed happy initially but then someone listened a bit more closely and realized something peculiar: both the left and the right channels of audio were identical! The port by Vicarious Visions claimed to have Dolby Pro Logic II audio output and, at the very least, stereo sound but in fact was neither. It was plain mono. Don't you think someone at Activision should have noticed? Or maybe Sony...no, wait, force of habit...Nintendo, who had to approve the game for sale? Or how about all those reviewers? Not a single peep. Odd that. Then there's Rock Band. It's bad enough that EA and its partners could not produce enough of the game's custom hardware to sell anything but $170 bundles for the holidays. Even worse, the hardware EA did manage to ship had guitars marred by “an imperfection with the strum bar," at least according to an official statement. How hard can it be? It's a plastic guitar, not a Stradivarius, for crying out loud. To its credit, EA promised to replace the bum instruments and then even tacked on a free EA game when those replacements didn't go out quickly enough to satisfy the pitchfork-and-torches crowds on the internets. And for its part, Activision has agreed to begin replacing those lacking Guitar Hero III Wii discs sometime in 2008, this time giving consumers one with both channels of audio. To demonstrate their understanding and patience, some GH3 Wii owners have filed a class action lawsuit. #2 – We Already Bought All the Good Ones, Right? Powerful men like John Riccitiello, chief executive of Electronic Arts, have their fingers on the pulse of the industry. If big moves are afoot, you can bet that they know about them well in advance. So when Riccitiello oversees EA's acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic for $855 million and later says the industry has “been largely picked” for mergers, you can take that wisdom to the bank. After all, a man like Riccitiello wouldn't say something like that just three days before the announcement of an $18.9 billion merger between his company's biggest rival and the company that publishes the game with more paying subscribers than Sweden has citizens. No way he'd get caught off guard like that. Right? And number one… #1 – Red Ink of Death With a year's headstart and exclusive hits like Gears of War, Microsoft started 2007 looking every bit the confident market leader they'd longed to be since 2001. Beneath that sanguine exterior, however, lurked a horrible, horrible truth: “Things break.” So said Microsoft's Peter “Antoinnette” Moore of increasingly prevalent Xbox 360 hardware failure – known colloquially as the Red Ring of Death – in a May 2007 in an interview with Mike Antonucci of The Mercury News. Within two months Microsoft publicly acknowledged finding several design flaws which were killing systems and took a $1 billion charge to extend consumer warranties. That charge alone cut Microsoft's profit for the quarter by 25%. A chastened Microsoft now says it has its problems sorted. We'll see.
Zechs Merquise Posted January 3, 2008 Posted January 3, 2008 Awesome list! I loved it, have you or anyone else seengaming's top 25 blunders of all time, that was a super list.
Cube Posted January 3, 2008 Posted January 3, 2008 Awesome list! I loved it, have you or anyone else seengaming's top 25 blunders of all time, that was a super list. I'm guessing that "Nintendo dumping Sony" was at the top of the list.
Zechs Merquise Posted January 5, 2008 Posted January 5, 2008 I'm guessing that "Nintendo dumping Sony" was at the top of the list. Nope but it was in there, there are far worse than Nintendo dumping Sony, http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/june03/dumbestmoments/ defo worth a read, it's an excellent series of articles!
Daft Posted January 5, 2008 Posted January 5, 2008 I love number 7! I'd love to have been the interviewer!
Zechs Merquise Posted January 5, 2008 Posted January 5, 2008 I found the whole Jon Romero story very interesting and funny. Number one is a classic too.
Recommended Posts