Microsoft Executive Defends Xbox One X Marketing Spin
It’s been a rough launch for the Xbox One X with reports of dead consoles on launch day and Amazon completely screwing up pre-orders. Understandably, Microsoft executives are on the defensive a little bit as Xbox badly needs the Xbox One X to thrive. During interviews published before the launch of the Xbox One X, Xbox Console Marketing Senior Director Albert Penello and other Microsoft executives mentioned the Xbox One X has the most launch titles ever for a console.
When questioned about his statements on the Resetera forums, Penello explained the reasoning behind it:
“Serious question. Most modern consoles launched with ~20 titles on day one. I’m not talking backwards compatible, I’m talking new titles that take advantage of the new platform. This can be re-masters, games that ship on past-gen and new gen, or new-gen exclusives. Quick search: X1 had 22. PS4 had 23, Pro had 30. Going back; 360 had 18 and PS3 had 14. PlayStation 1 had 10.
We had over 50 Xbox One X Enhanced titles on launch day; 67 as of today.
When I check this list – I see nothing all the way back in the neighborhood of 50.
What am I missing?”
In a following post, he elaborated further on the issue:
“In every console launch I have been a part of, the number of “launch titles” has always been a metric. As you know, I was doing a number of interviews prior to launch, and at the top of many lists of questions was “how many launch titles will you have that take advantage of the new console?” In fact, many people leading up to launch were suggesting that developers would not heavily support this console. So my assumption based on the number of questions I was getting was that the launch title metric was still important.
So I did some research and realized that we were going to have more “launch titles” than any other console.
Now – if you were to count “playable titles” that honor would go to the PlayStation 3 by a wide margin, having the HW ability to play the PS1 and PS2 games would have put it in the thousands.
If I ever said we had more total titles to play, I misspoke. I think what we said was that we had more Launch Titles, which is quantifiably true, and I think I explained what I meant by that number on GB as well.”
In response to a user who argued that enhanced games are not launch titles, Penello continued:
“For this point, I disagree since I watched the industry use the exact same term for the PS4 Pro launch.
Sony themselves talked about 40 launch titles. So if I say 50 launch titles, why am I spinning?
https://blog.us.playstation.com/2016/11/03/39-games-enhanced-for-ps4-pro-launch/
I’m really trying to understand how anything we said was spin, damage control or PR. We used the same terms.”
You have to admit, he makes some good points here. That being said, the marketing spin is in full effect for Mr. Penello as he is playing on the edge of semantics. The fact remains Xbox One X owners can take advantage of a lot of content right out of the box. Whether you consider them launch games or simply enhanced titles, that is up to you.
If you want to hear more about the Xbox One X, you can read our review HERE.