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June 2002: Paul Smith - X-Bo(llo)x?
There are basically two ways you can make someone do something. You can blackmail them or you can bribe them. This Stick-or-Carrot approach has been visible in Microsoft's recent console related activities. They tempted people to buy the X-Box with Halo; by all reports a truly exceptional game that's going to remain exclusive to the platform. Thus Halo is a Carrot. Then they reduced the RRP by a third in a bold (if short-sighted/term) attempt to energise sales. This is a deformed Carrot which would've warranted a brief appearance on That's Life. When a marketing campaign says, "Our product is better than There's", there is every justification in asking for more money for it. Then, weeks later, to turn around and say, "Actually, we promise ours is better, but we're going to drop the price to match our competitions inferior product", is a kick to the two-veg of anyone who'd already bought one. It antagonises your customers, devalues the item and is tantamount to treating a bloodied nose with a tourniquet around the neck.
I reckon if MS are really in the console market for the full GP and not just the warm-up lap, they should be hitting people with a Stick for not buying an X-Box. They need to bring out a range of exclusive titles of such gob-smacking quality people will feel punished by the so-so-ftware available for rival machines. Heaven-knows my N64 game buying habits took a back seat when Gran Turismo and Driver came out. Like the Minis escaping from Turin in The Italian Job, I hope for their sake MS have something amazing in the pipeline. Sadly, I fear they may have lost it in a cloud of gravel at the first corner.
This month, all's fairly quiet on the Western (Digital) front when it comes to PC build matters. 40Gb drives are still threatening to become cheaper than 20Gb ones and 7,200rpm spinners are solidly growing in popularity. Intel's introduction of 533MHz FSB chips and 'boards promises to breathe new life into the Pentium-4 desktop market, while the new 1.7GHz Celerons offer remarkable performance for their cost. DVD-recorders are also approaching pocket-money prices (providing you have vacant pocket-space for a good £250+ wad) and sales of these are rapidly swelling. I predict they'll be the must-have PC product of the coming year. After a digital camera of course!
On a personal note, I recently took part in my local radio stations version of Big Brother. I was locked-up with nine strangers (and some of them were very strange indeed) in an empty unit in my local shopping centre without so much as GameCube to keep us occupied. Passers-by could gawp at us while we playfully interacted with each other. I spent my time feeling like an unfashionably dressed manikin. For the purposes of neat journalism I'd like to be able say the disused shop used to sell computers. I can't. It sold school uniforms. However, an abandoned computer shop was just three doors down.
In PC component distribution Paul Smith is known as The Guv'.
500 mixed-metaphors Dale. I hope they're ok for you.
Can I ask you to take Ingram Micro's name off of this and future columns? After my piece last year on poor Management practices there was a shit/fan interface scenario. Part of my defence was that I hadn't been associated with IM in the magazine for months. And who knows, I may need to use this defence again some time.
Cheers
Paul