Friday, Sep 5, 2008
Microsoft's game-box revolution takes the path of mediocrity, while Sony's Playstation seizes the creative high ground.
Nov 15, 2001 | I should have known it was all over for the Xbox when Steve Ballmer hit the stage. I could have guessed it then, a few months before the Nov. 15 release of Microsoft's much-anticipated video game console.
"WHOOO! Give it up for me!" What follows was almost too horrific to contemplate. (Though that didn't keep the "Dance Monkeyboy" video clip from becoming last summer's viral hit.) Microsoft CEO Ballmer barrels onstage to Gloria Estefan, cantering and screeching while the Microsoft employees gathered beneath him applaud. "WHO SAID SIT DOWN?" he roars, when their dutiful enthusiasm begins to flag.
At the time, some analysts argued (and I'd agree) that this wasn't some bizarre unleashing of Ballmer's personal demons but a rare view straight into Microsoft's soul. Soaked armpits and all, Monkeyboy was emblematic of the company's invincibility and sheer force of will.
But while this kind of big-thigh bravado no doubt does wonders, say, when it comes to leading a company through 15 bruising rounds of an antitrust brawl, it's not exactly the sort of panache you associate with console gaming. For the longest time, that market's been the province of the Japanese, represented by the likes of unflappable Sony Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi or revered Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto -- elegantly groomed, unassuming men who modestly offer their wares with only a hint of boyish twinkle, as if they were toymakers to the emperor's children.
That profound culture clash didn't seem to matter, bolstered as Xbox was by Microsoft's willingness to spend a half-billion dollars to promote it, and lose a billion more, by some estimates, before breaking even.
No one doubts that they'll take a significant cut of the market this Christmas; with all that money and commitment, they're at least insured some traction, even as they launch their new console just days before the debut of the GameCube, Nintendo's next-generation system, and a phalanx of new titles for the Sony Playstation 2, last year's returning champion. With an established audience that skews decidedly younger, Nintendo's GameCube is not really a direct competitor; and many gamers who've long owned the Playstation 2 will probably be more than ready to try out a new system, too. Purely on momentum, then, the "console wars" for this year, as much as the mainstream media would like to sustain them, are more or less over. Microsoft will move plenty of boxes.
But the war of ideas is over, too -- and on that front, the one that really counts, Microsoft has lost, almost utterly lost. Gone is the bold promise to innovate and revolutionize gaming -- the chance to create a brand so daring and unique, it would finally seize gamers' attention away from Japan. The spirit of Monkeyboy has trickled down to the Xbox team, and almost fully possessed it.
With two possible exceptions, the Xbox and its premiere list of games are undistinguished, undifferentiated and inoffensive -- and consciously tooled to be exactly all those things. The Xbox is, in effect, the Internet Explorer of game consoles.
Which is not to say it's bad, but something worse: a Me Too production financed by a company with the resources to accomplish and afford so much more. But where Internet Explorer captured the browser market by being, well, free, the chances in this game-box war aren't so solid for Microsoft, competing on a truly level playing field for the first time in over 15 years.
Compared to the Xbox, Nintendo's new console offers almost as much computing power, but at a lower price, with an unimpeachable brand and the heft of a game design genius. And looming even larger, Sony has quietly spent the interval since its 2000 debut to take real chances, fostering a palette for artistry and innovation on the Playstation 2. Xbox now competes against a massive library ambitious enough to accommodate a game based on Dante's "Inferno" and wide enough to slip in a game that lets you solicit sex acts from streetwalkers.
In opposition, all Microsoft really has is a horde of mediocre titles -- and $500 million to spend on a megaphone loud enough to bellow "Give it up for me!" into a quickly emptying auditorium.
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