This year many gamers will open new consoles for the holidays and many of those same gamers are going bring their console “live” on Xbox Live the same day. Traditionally we’ve found Xbox Live falls under the weight of the holiday rush much like Apple’s iTunes. Will we repeat history again?
Although a fully loaded Xbox Live service is money in the bank, how much money will Microsoft lose when gamers login for the first time to a service in a state of destruction? People say first impressions are extremely important, but Microsoft makes a poor first impression every holiday. Xbox Live’s Jerry Johnson told Eurogamer:
“I can tell you that when Robbie Bach is on the phone on Christmas Day calling people asking what the hell is going on, and that’s coming down from Steve Ballmer… that’s the kind of attention it got last holiday.
Many things have changed since then, and we realised [sic] the kind of growth trajectory we were on and had to prepare for it.” (Kotaku)
It’s obvious the top executives at Microsoft want to give customers a great first impression and, after a few repeated holiday down times, this year is the chance to change it all. By now, Microsoft should be fully aware of the holiday flash crowd and have a system ready to cover the load.
Plenty of gamers login because their console automatically signs in on startup, but a handful of those gameres will be shopping for Xbox Live Arcade games to see what Microsoft is now offering them and their new console. Many XBLA games the current 360 crowd is bored of will be fresh and new to holiday adopters so it’s very important to keep the system online.
Much like Amazon, sales will decrease when the service is busy or under heavy load. Hopefully Microsoft is ready to make a great first impression to new buyers and give them the option to buy high valued (high markup) electronic downloads.
Although we weren’t able to get a free copy to give away for Castle Crashers due to limited supply, GameStooge has one, and has the ability to hand one out. If you’re looking to get in on the contest and potentially get a free code to download Castle Crashers upon its release, checkout GameStooge’s contest.
Activision’s Dan Amrich
my favorite is the miniature castle from the ringer. The on that the special midget stays in. it is the best castle because it has the best wizard, better than gandalf!!! lol
gamertag- Kamthebeast
My fav castle movie is monty python holy grail, i like the castle because they are stupid people inside.
lord of the rings, cuz its a castle where a legend was made 😀 epic movie. epic castle. .. mmm =)
I think best movie with the castle is Lord Of the Rings because it has many of castles ,and games of LOTR-Lord of the rings are too good
my favorite castle movie was in eragon because the castle was pitch black hade some pretty cool guards and held the evil shade in it so that was my favorite part! Gamertag: AC3 4 LIF3
Sorry, Aklid, 1. the contest was at GameStooge, and 2. the contest is long over. 🙂