So last night I settled in for some TV at my friend’s house, briefly discussing some new games that will be coming out when I saw this ad for the Xbox 360. It’s part of the ‘Live Your Moment’ marketing campaign that Microsoft has kicked off. There have been a few others such as family games, featuring Lego Batman and for music games featuring Rock Band 2. Those I don’t have a problem with. It’s this one that I have a problem with, the movie one.
Did anyone catch that? Sure the Xbox 360 can download and play HD movies, we know that, but the Xbox 360 displayed is priced at GBP 129.99, the Arcade version, which lacks a hard drive. Yes they did mention in the commercial that a hard drive is required but that doesn’t say much to me when you advertise the version without a hard drive. To me this is nothing more than a cheap shot for market share by Microsoft. Family games, music games, and movies are the 3 big hot topics these days and Microsoft covers all of them, cheaply according to them, yet not 100% true.
This pisses me off, especially when one of my slower friends was tempted to purchase the Arcade because he wanted to watch movies and play games, which wouldn’t have worked on the GBP 129.99 budget. Anyone else think this advertisement is slightly skewed from reality? Or that some people will be disappointed when they open their holiday gifts and end up with a Xbox 360 that doesn’t play movies?
That’s the world of advertising. There are very few companies that do not have something that is misleading or could be construed as misleading in an advertisement.
Marketing is marketing, they have displayed the required info. If anyone buys it thinking that they can watch movies,, then it is their fault for not paying attention. I’m sure if you had a company and wanted to advertise you would find ways to ‘trick’ the public. More money is made that way, and like it or not, the world is run by money.
Would you like some French cries with your waaburger?
It’s common practice for companies to the lowest price in the product range. That’s why there’s the “Now From” before the price. Take a look at newspaper ad’s for a car dealer. They show you the lowest priced model, want power windows/locks oh that’s more.
Anyway, you’re just nit picking. Sorry you have dim-witted friends.
I agree, it is up to the consumer to realize this. It sucks that Microsoft even made a Xbox without a hard drive, it just confuses people and makes it harder on the developers. It’s all about the $.
@Tyler – while I agree it’s up the consumer, Microsoft and store employees should take some responsibility for selling the consumer they product they need to do what they intend. People are dumb
In this day and time… that’s what marketing is. Put your best face on cause your going to show it off. It doesn’t matter if it portrays the wrong meaning just as long as it looks good. Although this is annoying, you can’t blame anyone but yourself if you jump at the moment and make your purchase without doing any research.
Look despite all that In my opinion just looks freaky the way its a show at the back of her head looks awsome
its one thing to say that the consumer should know better, but its another thing ENTIRELY to advertise the $199.99 sku and present the ability to download movies when you cannot! Can you imagine if a pizza commercial-Little Ceasars for instance. Not only do you see the five dollar pizza, but they specifically say that you get whatever topping(s) (more than one) you want. Then you get there and then to get what you saw in the commercial it costs 7.99 or you can buy the one topping pizza for 5 buks right after you just wiped your mouth clean from drooling over a supreme pizza.
If you dont have the exta 4 buks with tax your going to be pissed!!
No this is not a legitimate complaint, sounds like just another excuse to bash MS.
Did you write an article whining about the possibility of people buying a PS3 without backwards compatibility last year after Sony quietly ripped it out of models being sold right next to models with it still available? I didn’t think so, nice try fanboy, like everyone said then, the consumer should know WTF he is buying when spending that kind of money, a little research goes a long way.
@BlakGzus – Yes you should be pissed but most consumers will still pay for it. The machine does have the ability to do whatever it says, you just need to buy storage. I understand it’s not the right thing to do but if everyone would think for themselves instead of making hasty decisions it wouldn’t matter what the commercial says.
In conclusion, yes it is wrong what Microsoft is saying in this the ad but lessons can be learned. Our world is full of morons, look out for yourself because Microsoft won’t, Nintendo won’t, and Sony won’t.
People will say anything to make a sale, whether it be in gamestop, Best Buy, that kid on the subway selling candy bars, or a used-car salesman.
umm….the movies are streamed with net flix. A hard drive is NOT required for that service.
Fuck Money$oft. They’re fucking pricks that make shitty products, and none of them work.
It’s not completely misleading. With the addition of Netflix with HD movies you don’t need a HDD to watch movies. Download movies, yes. But Netflix will stream (granted you have a netflix subscription.)
The only thing misleading is this “article”.
Check your facts: with the new 512MB memory cards available for all new Acrade SKUs (and given for free by Microsoft to people with old arcade SKUs – let’s see another company that does that) Netflix works just fine.
Well it’s a funny little trick to say the least. Microsoft really think they’re slick lol.
A few things to clear up.
One – this is a UK advert. So it’s in GBP, not USD, tax is included in the price (VAT).
Two – Netflix doesn’t work fine as it’s not offered in the UK. So it doesn’t work at all.
Three – Unfortunately I was not writing for Loot-Ninja.com when the PS3 shenanigans regarding Backwards Compatibility occurred. But I was looking to buy a PS3 and that’s one of the major reasons I didn’t buy a PS3.
I think the people who will be most pissed off are the people who get an Arcade as a gift. How many under-informed and under-researched parents, aunts, uncles, and girlfriends/boyfriends are out there that will just buy the cheap one? I know as kid it sucked getting the wrong gift or half-assed versions of the gift you wanted. Think of all those poor kids who want the Xbox 360 Elite to watch HD movies on and instead they end up with a Wii because their drunk uncle said, “It plays video games, he’ll like it!”
You can get a hard drive for twenty bucks now with the program microsoft is doing for NXE. And its not misleading when the thing says Need a Harddrive they wouldnt put that there if they were advertising the Elites or pro models duurrr
I think when you consider all the positive things MS is doing right now, and all the things they have done for gaming since 360 alone, this just is not that big of a deal, your really reaching here. Its not like they did not mention that you need a HDD at all.
We are getting a whole new UI for the console free of charge for godsake, instead of writing this flamebate type negative BS why not concentrate on the positive, this is the best time to be a gamer in history.
This is the way Microsoft does marketing. It has been this way from day one with them. Even PC owners never know from the ads what they need to run Windows. And now on November 19th Microsoft will do it again, Arcade owners will be forced to upgrade their hardware if they even want to go find a movie to download. The New Xbox Experience requires more memory than is installed in the Arcade so you will have to either find a 512mb memory card, 20gb refurbished drive or buy the new X-Box Live update package for $99 USD… So there you go the inexpensive introductory x-box needs more money to go online…
U PLANK they jus statin tht the console is now from 129.99 its not sayin xbox 360 is 129.99 and tht this console can only play movies so they nt misleadin the public.
How does that surprise u?? Typical xbox nonesense. Actually that advert not so bad when you consider they put out a machine with a 58% failure rate. Not 30% as they would have u believe, they are being sued in California for lying about their reliabilty and in Germany they are being sued for releasing a machine that did not hit safety or reliability targets.
if sony pulls that kind of shit no body talks like this so F*CK it. all brands do this kind of shit but when microsoft does it its big news!
What do you except. M$ are not in the console market to make you happy they are in it to make money by either fair means or foul !!! They couldn’t give a toss about you. But show them some of that corporate money and you can join the club.
Cunts, wankers, fuck heads, mother fuckers, bastards, and pricks.
It’s a freaky advert, no wonder kids are fuked up in the head.