Gamerscore Blog

I think Tony has been hitting the gym. He looks buff.:-)

Tony does look buff just looking at him makes me wana rub him down with some oil and spank him.

LMFAO! ^^ yea..me to :]

It's killing me that instead of being there, enjoying all the fun, I'm here at home, still sick with this darn cold.  Have a great time, folks!  That limo is HOT - but is there a 360 in there?  ;)

Looks like everyones having a blast. Major looked great with the fork in his shirt pocket too. ;) Hopefully, in a few years, I'll be able to go down to Vegas and chill with the Microsoft crew.

You don't think the SUV is excessive?
  Why not set an example and use something more environmentally friendly?

So. Jealous.

I hope that those of you ridin' around in that sweet limo will pour out a (root) beer for me ;)

@ Zeouterlimits
I doubt all those folks would fit into a Prius.  ;-)

I'm with NIN 013 - Super sweet, totally jealous.  I hope they are rock'n a few 360s in there.

whooo, talk about blowing money. how about just saving the million that got blowed on that horrible idea mobile, and just lowering the price on your products, better yet take that money and buy more servers for live

Nice job turning around a great treat and favor for community members into something EVIL.  I mean, seriously.

I still can't figure out why MS sent Major Nelson to this show.  Gamespot just wrote a report on CES and said they don't have a single demo of anything 360.


I'm willing to bet Larry and the GS blog crew where there because they were announcing that HD-DVD ultimate 360, then they pulled it all after Warner made it's announcement.   Otherwise it makes no sense to have so much of the 360 PR team including Larry for a show that is showing nothing about the 360.

Burgers and a ride to and from?  Interesting.  How many seats are spoken for?  

Geez - you again.

They are there to support Microsoft the company which the Xbox 360 is a part of.

You can be all you want, but you'll be a poor soul.

Nice fancy wheels!

@Shamrock - Larry (Major Nelson) isn't part of the PR team, or the community team. He is on the product team.  I know I said this earlier, and your response was that I was incorrect.

There wasn't anything that Microsoft was showing for the Xbox 360 on the show-floor.

Our community team (Tony, John, and myself) is here in part to cover the show for folks who aren't able to attend.  We are in part helping bloggers, and smaller websites get access to executives, and spokespeople that they wouldn't be able to get access to normally.  We are here in part to get to meet in person some folks we communicate with almost daily via email and instant messenger.

Larry is here in part to cover the show for xbox.com, and for marketplace.  He is also here to meet some of the folks he talks to daily.

You believe that we had a new SKU, and decided not to announce it because of Warner Brothers.  You are entitled to your opinion even if it is wrong.

Do you know how much money it costs to design new components, manufacture new components, design box art, set up retailers, and market a new 360 SKU?  Do you think we would spend all that money only to pull it at the last minute because of Warner Brothers.

Paladino is right, and if I'm not mistaken, there were Games for Windows booths. Just because there wasn't much of a 360 presence doesn't mean something must have been yanked at the last second.

I'm just pointing out that the 360's lack of presence at the show is odd.  Even more odd is to send Major Nelson to the show and there is nothing 360 to speak of.  360 is still part of MS technology at should be showcased.   They are showcasing every other technology they make, why not 360?  



Also I'm still trying to figure out why it's the year 2008 and MS hasn't said anything about 2008 games at all.  On top of this MS PR people like Jeff Bell has disappeared off the face of the Earth.   I've never even seen Don Mattrick talk publicly, and to be honest I have no idea who the face of the 360 is now.  

I'd like to know whats going on to be honest.   Does MS not have any leadership anymore?   Are they moving to a nameless/faceless organization (at least in the gaming division)?  And who replaced Shane Kim?  Last I heard he was fired or quit or something.   If not he is MIA to.   Something strange is brewing with MS and the 360 right now.  I find it strange, and it does intrigue me.

Now here is what I think is going on:


Now lets ask ourself why MS would not want to put a face/name to the organization right now? I mean if there is no master plan to speak of then no one can argue not having a front man/spokesperson/face of the 360 is a good thing. There is no upside to it. Wii has Reggie, PS3 has Trenton, Kaz, among others that promote their console publicly, do interviews, give fans teaser info, etc...


So why would MS not want to do this? For me the most logical explanation is their name/face of the company is not with the company right now. He will be as soon as EA/MS merge (Peter Moore).

Now before you go all nuts and call my crazy for thinking this, it is at least plausible and logical. EA and MS have already traded executives Moore/Mattrick. On top of this it's the only plausible explanation I can think of for not having a new spokesman/360 executive coverboy since Moore left. It would make sense that MS wouldn't want to associate their brand name (360) with someone who is not going to be the "official" spokesman in the near future.

It would also make sense as to why MS is letting so many 1st/2nd party devs go.  Because in the near future they are about to get EA's entire library as exclusive.   One would think they have to make room for that.

It would also make sense as to why EA also went out and secured quality developers like Bioware and Pandemic.   To ultimately make them exclusive to the 360 platform if or when this goes down.

Even though I'm having fun speculating.  I think this is likely to happen.  Everything is done for a reason and one must ask themself why is MS doing the things it's doing.  Why don't they  have a executive face to the 360, why are they not talking about 1st party games yet, if there was nothing planned what would be a benefit to not promoting your games or your system?  

Even talking about 1st party games without showing them is a benefit.  Any PR is good PR.  Saying nothing doesn't make sense, unless there is a master plan.

Alright, flying in literally to meet up! I'll step off the plane and find the large/oversize gas guzzler.

Coming from SF so you guys better buy me a double double or 3.

@Shamrock - wow dude, you are so misinformed I don't even know what to say.  Post that on neoGaf and you may be permabanned for ignorance.

Shane Kim quit or was fired?  No.  Where'd you hear this?

Jeff Bell is in hiding?  Do you read the internet sites that spoke to him this week?  Did you see our blog where he's featured talking to community people?

No one talking about 2008 - Lost Oddysee, Halo Wars, Fable 2, etc.

I don't even know where to start with your EA + MS merger speculation.

Chris


And if I was right I"m sure you would come out and confirm it for me.


The writing is on the wall.  Let's look at what happened.


-MS basically trade Moore for Mattrick.  

-EA comes out and admits openly (in fact volunteered the information) that Madden runs at 60 fps on 360, only 30 fps on PS3 a day before E3

-EA is a showcase in MS ES conference, even having Reggie Bush.  MIA from Sony's confrence.

-EA is making more money on 360 sales than PS3 and Wii sales combined

- President of EA comes out and says they would like to see the industry move to a unified console

-EA gives Moore 17 million dollars worth of Stock Options for going to EA.  More than any other person at EA including their CEO.  To run EA sports?  A division of EA?  More than the CEO who runs the entire corporation?



Now you tell me Chris.  How does one go about having a unified console?  Is Sony, MS, and Nintendo suddenly going to realize the error of their ways and all build machines next generation with the same specs?  Good luck with that.

No Chris, if EA really wants a unified console, and they did say that (their words not mine).  Then there is only one way.  They throw 100% of their support behind one console in a attempt to kill the rest.  Thus you have a unified console.   In fact I don't even think they are worried about Nintendo.  Making wii games is easy and cheap.  EA wants PS3 to go away.  

Lowest install base + most expensive console to develop for = recipe for disaster.  EA would like nothing more than for PS3 to fold, not have to develop expensive games (that don't sell well) and have all that PS3 install base move over to the 360.  


By the way I did post this to Neo-GAF.  I posted the same theory months ago when Moore first left.   The post didn't get me banned and in fact most people said it made a lot of sense.   I'll post the link later.  Got in a bit of trouble on GAF for talking some smack about Blue-Ray.  They gave me a week vacation  :-)

Jeesh, the tin hats are in FULL effect here :(

Woooww.

Tin hats are for conspiracy's.  In a conspiracy, a group of people typically conspire against someone/something.  I don't think this qualifies as a conspiracy.  No one is trying to harm anyone.  

I'm just giving my theory based of the things EA has said publicly and the moves MS has made since Moore left.  Chris can try to shoot down things I"m saying, but in the end Shane Kim has dropped off the face of the Earth since shane from 1up said he was leaving/fired/resigned what have you.   The guys a ghost.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/19/1up-goes-for-two-fer-hints-that-shane-kim-is-leaving-ms/

As for Jeff Bell I missed the interviews he did this week, but aside from that he is definately not in the spot light.  Doing a skit about Mass Effect Dialouge is a little different than being a spokesman for the console.

Then we have the games.  It's 2008 and what has been shown about Banjo, Alan Wake, Fable 2, and Halo Wars?   Honestly.   Sony is pimping their 2008 line up big time and was is MS doing?

6-12 months ago Moore would be making rounds all over the internet with major gaming sites pimping the upcoming lineup, doing interviews, giving teaser info, talking about what the future will bring.   Who's doing that now?   No one.

Again it comes back to the fact that  no one is the executive face of the 360.  No one has stepped in for Moore in the public spotlight as the leader of the 360 brand.

Now make no mistake about it, that is by design.  MS is not that incompetent to just not notice that "Hey, we don't have leader/public spokesman for our system".

So unless MS doesn't realize this problem which would be a failure on their part from a PR perspective, then it's for a reason.  

I posted on Xbox.com asking Who is the executive face of the 360.   Feel free to look at it.   People are confused.  They say it's Don Mattrick, but he has done zero since coming to MS.

http://forums.xbox.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=17845475


So again, if it's not part of some plan what is the benefit to your user base not having a executive leader the public knows/likes/trusts?  Every other console has them.  Where is ours?

Shamrock, do you have your own blog?  you should if you don't so i don't have you read everything on  someone else's comments (which i hardly ever do)