The power of the crowd: how critical and consumer feedback made Xbox One a contender

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...k1-610x343.jpgAt August’s Gamescom conference Sony Computer Entertainment’s Andrew House gloated that “while others have shifted their message and changed their story, we were consistent in maintaining policies and a model that is fair and in tune with consumer desires”.The line garnered some laughs, but it ignored the very real effects of Microsoft’s responses to its dialogues with gamers over the months since Xbox One’s announcement. The company has worked hard to be seen to match Sony on every level, and in some respects may have even surpassed its competitor.“I think when you create a vision of the future, you paint the vision of the future that you are most excited about,” says Microsoft’s Phil Harrison. “But we got clear feedback that some of the things we were proposing were perhaps a little too far into the future. So we changed. We took feedback from the community; we changed our plans. We think that’s a good thing.”Microsoft’s policy reversals have been dramatic. Following a disastrous E3, it immediately cut Xbox One’s insistence on a permanent Internet connection and 24-hour check-in for digital titles, as well as the system’s region locking and restrictions on lending and reselling games. Negative feedback to an always-on Kinect – made especially troublesome in light of Microsoft’s cooperation with the NSA’s Prism programme – meant Kinect would no longer be required, even if you had no choice but to buy one with the console.

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