Poor Microshaft

[Crash]

Shane posted something about all the leaks going on at Microsoft, and I must say I'm constantly in awe at just how inept the company is at keeping a secret. (Now you know why Bungie has their own completely separate network.) Sony keeps all of their **** under wraps until the appointed hour and nobody ever has any idea what's going on at Nintendo. Well....OK, I shouldn't say nobody....we live in interesting times, my friends!

Anyway, is the size of Microsoft to blame? Or is it something about our western society where people are more willing to spill the beans? (Europe is even worse than America in this regard, believe it or not.) Is it the price MS pays for being friendly with the press? (And they are--we get more, earlier, and better access with MS than any other co, an attitude you will see reflected in the quality of our piece on the next Xbox and Perfect Dark Zero next issue.)

Not sure, but whatever it is, they should get their **** together before the leaks start doing some real harm. (A little tip to MS: people might actually give two ****s about tease peeks at the hardware on your viral marketing site if they hadn't already seen the whole damn thing on just about every game message board on the internet.) Now that the hardware has leaked, it's on to the XBox Live and specific game info...

Long story short: If you're looking for me at the "big" Microsoft announcement, I'll be at the bar with everyone else who heard it all twice already on the net and MTV.

* Special thanks to Shivam and his magical pill for making my breathing, and so indirectly this post, possible. As a side note, Claritin and Drixoral Max Strength make for quite the interesting morning

so microsoft has shown its cards too early and no one cares anymore... LOL I WANT TO SEE PD0 STILL

[GameMaster]

We always see the systems and games from someone else before the actual makers show them. It doesn't ruin the suspence. It elevates it as we wonder whether what've seen is real or not, and how it will function.

[Bond]

Does anyone really care what this guy thinks?

[Perfect Stu]

Originally Posted by Bond

Does anyone really care what this guy thinks?

apparently.

[gekko]

How hard is it to keep a secret? Very hard.

Consoles aren't just made and released. You have the entire team behind the development of the console. You have the execs at Microsoft who approve of the new products. You have the lawyers that file for all the patents and trademarks. You have the low-end guys filing the paperwork and scheduling appointments. You have the PR reps. You have the in-house product testers. You have the market research groups. You have the graphic designers making sure the press pictures of the console are pretty. You have the guy running the Xerox machine making copies. You have all the development houses, all the programmers, all the artists, all the designers, all their little possies.

It's hard to keep a secret. When you watch this tonight, you are far from the first person to see the new Xbox. For many, it's old news. Same thing with movies, stand in line for Star Wars 3, be the first to see it, except that many before you have already done so.

But more likely, Microsoft is doing this on their own. Any Apple fans know that Apple is the king of leaks. It's a way of generating hype. They uploaded the G5 pictures and links for a minute, knowing how many people would take screen shots of it. The next day, everyone watched the keynote, knowing the G5 would be unveiled. They reveal Tiger, a couple hours later the pre-release build they are using at the show is on the net. They reveal Keynote, it's on the net in hours. I've seen entire diagrams of new cases and chipsets they ended up revealing months later.

But everyone knows, Apple does it themselves, and they joke about it in the keynotes. But it works. Apple has 5% market share, but has a cult following and an insanely high customer satisfaction rate. Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony receives bitches and complaints all day.

[MuGen]

Realistically, hardware and software leaks make for good publicity. HYpe is a powerful driving force of today's economy.

[Professor S]

The funniest parts are that these are considered "leaks". A real leak would be if someone got a hold of every launch game, full size pics from every angle, the absolute final specs from the final build, etc, and released it all a year ago.

Meanwhile, most fo the leaks have been nondesript pictures of parts of the console and finally the entire console itself. What does this do? Keeps people talking about it, and not the PS3, and reminds us all that the Xbox 360 launch is very soon. Its called "marketing the console", my friends. Releasing "leaks" makes the whole thing seems scandalous and invites rumors and gossip, instead of just another billboard or TV commercial which most people just ignore.

Thats my opinion on the whole thing.