玩家反感 微软取消多个Xbox 争议限制政策

Were you surprised that Microsoft went into reverse on this?

I was hugely surprised personally, because despite the enormous backlash from gamers, Microsoft is not traditionally a company that tends to reverse in quite such a dramatic way as this. They come from a position of market dominance in consoles from Xbox 360, and it’s very strange of them to reverse like that if that’s for one.

So why do you think they did it?

I think a lot of people said it was because of gamers, because there are so many thousands of gamers came out and said we do not want restrictions on how we play games, and we don’t wanna be told when we can play them, and we don’t wanna connect to the Internet every 24 hours.

But they will still use it or were they threatening to boycott?

I think most people will switch into the main rival, Sony. Here’s the real thing, it’s not so much, in my opinion, gamers that have caused these changes. It's Sony who went all like to this year’s E3 Expo, which is the big video game expo every year, Sony went all out right for the throat of Microsoft and said we support used games, we support gamers and I think Microsoft probably looked at the preorder numbers, and went.

But how did they get it so wrong and also with windows 8, I mean, surely they test this thing, they have a policy, they must have discussed this, why do you think, Keza, they got this so wrong?

I think that what Microsoft was shooting for is something like Apple’s system, which is a beautiful, from a corporate standpoint, a beautiful system where everybody has to play within a walled garden. And Microsoft was going for a digital future in which there was a greater level of control and also benefits that came with that by causing things to be digital only. So if you want to buy a game, you bought it from Microsoft-wired Internet. 

Well, if Apple could do it, why couldn't Microsoft, or was it a case of because Microsoft did that, the genie out of the bottle, you can’t put it back in again?

I think it’s partly to do with console gaming culture. Everybody huge, you know in the 20, 30, 40s,

But how did Microsoft get it so wrong, they must have known that gamers like you and others would have been up in arms, spitting feathers.

You would think so, wouldn’t you?

Yes,

I think this is the most puzzling thing about this entire reversal, is how could Microsoft possibly not have known that this kind of reaction? And it’s possible there was an element of bravery, there that Don Mattrick, the head of the Xbox business, basically said, look, we know we’re gonna get bad reaction, but we’re gonna do it anyway, and if that’s the case, this is a sign of weakness,too, to reverse on that vision. But I think, I mean, it seems to me that 

You’re an expert on all of this, so tell me in a nutshell, do you see it as a sign of weakness, or a sign of bravery, or a sign of maturity that they’ve reversed?

I think it’s a sign of maturity, I think that adapting your business strategy this late in the game, one week after announcing, I think in the long term, it’s gonna pay off very well, it looks ridiculous now to some people, but in the long term they’ve done I think the best thing for consumers.