Comment 2RR Re: Just Great

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XBMC is being renamed to Kodi

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Just Great (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-01 19:32 (#2RF)

Throw away your years of branding and reputation. That's what open source needs, more confusing nonsensical unneeded rebranding to another nonsense word. How many of these projects must we chase down every time we revisit them in a couple of years? Usually there's at least a valid legal reason, but this?

And without RTFA I don't believe that second paragraph. XBMC isn't tied to the Xbox name just because it originated that way. Has MS even hinted at a problem?

Case in point; I'm writing this and have already forgotten the awkward meaningless new project name. :(

Re: Just Great (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-08-01 20:02 (#2RH)

In TFA there is a bit more. They want to expand it from "Media Center" to "Entertainment Center", and seems they thought "while we're making changes, let's dump the Xbox part too". While the new name isn't as catchy, at least it is less awkward to say.

The real problem is that logo. It looks like something targeted to little kids. "We arent quite there yet" is very generous.

Re: Just Great (Score: 2, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-08-01 20:11 (#2RJ)

It looks like something targeted to little kids.
And "Xbox" isn't targeted towards little kids?

Re: Just Great (Score: 2, Interesting)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-08-01 21:23 (#2RK)

I am puzzled by that comment. You do realize the average owner of an Xbox is older than 30... right? Or do you still think gaming is something kids do with their friends in the basement?

Read this: www.theesa.com/facts/

The "little kids" part of your comment is particularly off-base. Most of their marketing is targeting young adults or people in their thirties. Not surprising considering the kind of games they offer.

Re: Just Great (Score: 2, Insightful)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-08-01 22:36 (#2RP)

Sorry... As a 33 year old addicted to a few computer-based video games myself (Starcraft, Warcraft, SimCity, etc), I did not realize that those "older-age-gamer" stats extended to some console systems as well.

I personally have never owned an Xbox, or know anyone that has, so my only impression of them come from some of the TV advertisements that I have seen such as this one that depicts a number of families playing the games. In these official ads by Microsoft, aside from a few parents, the average age appears to be somewhere in the 10-12 range. Perhaps these family friendly ads full of youngsters where mainly a stab at Nintendo's Wii successes and not at the general population of actual users of the console. Forgive my unfair generalizations.

Re: Just Great (Score: 1)

by skarjak@pipedot.org on 2014-08-02 03:27 (#2RR)

Microsoft's infatuation with the Kinect was an unfortunate time. By that point in the console generation, they seemed to think they had won over Sony and that the "core gamer" audience would be loyal to them no matter what. As you say, they were really chasing the Wii crowd with that thing. I'd say those kinect ads may also have been targeted at fathers who owned the system and may want something that would allow them to play with their kids.

Most of the Xbox's collection of games is composed of first and third person shooters, action games and sports games, with a significant fraction of those shooters having an M rating. Not to say their games are very mature, they have that tendency that many game companies have of thinking gory = mature, but I'd say it's fair to say most parents wouldn't want a kid under 10 to be playing too many Xbox games.

Microsoft's consoles have a reputation of being "bro" consoles, if anything. The violence is a big part of the appeal for that demographic.

I assumed you were someone speaking out of their ass about gaming being a children's hobby (as I've seen happen many times) so I apologize if I was too harsh.

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