Do you like TV? Sports? Dogs? Water coolers? Tv? Sports? COD? TV? Sports? TV? TV?
What, you like games? GO HOME!
Here’s the top ten most embarrassing moments from last nights debacle:
10. “Xbox One is the next water-cooler”
This bizarre statement is representative of marketing phrases thrown together that sound like they should make sense, but when analyzed are revealed to be complete bullshit. Conceptually, how does that even work? The “watercooler” is the thing people gather around to discuss popular culture, right? So people gather around the Xbox One and talk about… what? The things they watched on Xbox? Where does the water even go? Maybe you just pour it in the Blu-Ray tray.
9. How it Looks
I had a satellite television box that looked just like this in 1992. Well, it was less boxy and a bit slicker, but it was basically the same.
8. Less than 2 seconds of J Allard!
That’s not enough Allard!
7. The MS Employees forced to clap
Several sources have confirmed that none of the journalists at the event were applauding. The clapping came from MS employees. Understandable perhaps, but so soul crushingly depressing that I can hardly muster the energy to condemn it. That’s just shitty.
6. The pandering to popular culture
Star Trek: Into Darkness! Game of thrones! Star Trek: Into Darkness! DeadMau5!
The desperate scramble for legitimacy was squirm inducing to watch. Guys, it’s ok to like games! YOU helped make games mainstream. Xbox 360 was key in popularizing console gaming to a whole generation, so why are we being so deferential to film and television? For example, why are we forced to listen to:
5. Steven Spielberg’s Contemporary Game References
Pong! PONG! Look, we all love you already Steve. You made Jaws and Indiana Jones. You don’t need to win us over, and you don’t have to pander to us. It’s ok if you’re not that into games. You respect them, and that’s good enough for us. So please, stop talking about Pong! You’re actually already cool, but somehow you’re becoming to gaming what Rodney Dangerfield was to rap.
4. The Name
What? The Xbox One? What? I guess its called that because… no, I don’t get it at all.
Unless it’s all some sort of high school trick.
“Which console won this generation?”
“The Playstation 4?”
“No, the Xbox 1! LOOLZ! Burn! In yo face!”
Here’s what the brilliantly cynical Andy Kelly (and most of the games journalism world) thought:
3. “This is rocket science level stuff!”
Microsoft’s Marc Whitten said the console has USB 3.0, Blu-ray and over 300,000 servers for the next gen of Xbox Live. Then said the line above. He managed to say it with a serious face. That’s actually really impressive (go to 3:20).
2. Pre-rendered sports people
Is it just me, or does this look terrible? Honestly? Tell me if you liked this. I would love to know. To me, it looks badly rendered CG. From last gen.
1. Next gen is here. And he’s all fwuffy!
We see your giant enemy crab, and raise you a fluffy dog!
So there you go. The worst press conference since the dancing girls with price tags on their tummies at the N-Gage launch. The amazing thing is, this console could still be great. Clever people made it, and creative people are making games for it. It is however, marketed by complete and utter twats.
I think this summed the whole event up best: