Xbox One and How It Affects Advertising
The unveiling of the Xbox One has been long awaited and highly anticipated. Microsoft, with creating Xbox One is trying to follow up one of the most successful gaming consoles ever in the Xbox 360. Needless to say, as someone who owns an Xbox 360, I had been waiting for this unveiling to see what new and exciting features that Microsoft had included on their new console. When I first heard about some of the new features of Xbox One, I was crushed to find out that it will not support old games from the Xbox 360. With this information, I had to search further to see if this would actually be a system worth buying. I found a number of qualities that make this console somewhat revolutionary.
One feature I found quite interesting was that you can upload your cable subscription right on to the Xbox One so you can watch TV directly from your Xbox. With this function, combined with the new Kinect feature that has voice recognition, you will be able to change the TV channel without touching the remote. But it doesn’t stop there. With this new voice recognition, users and TV watchers alike will be able to change the channel, surf the internet, or obtain more information about something they saw on TV with a simple voice command.
It has been speculated that if you were watching TV and an advertisement came up that you wanted more information about, you would simply just have to say “More Info” and Xbox would open up a webpage or link that directs you to information about the content. This is great for advertisers as it could possibly allow for more interaction with potential customers. It would also allow them to showcase their product or service even more than just a 30 second ad spot. This could potentially revolutionize television advertising. The interactive nature of the Kinect combined with modern advertising could possibly lead companies to new customers they otherwise would have been able to reach.
With this new technology that benefits advertisers and the general public alike, Xbox One is being positioned and sold as the center of your living room entertainment. While this is a potentially great step for Xbox, I am not sure about the lack of attention they are giving to their original customer base: the gamers. Without the ability to play Xbox 360 games and some underwhelming projected game releases, it will be very interesting to see how well $500 Xbox One does when it is released.
