Don Mattrick steamrolls over the next-gen connectivity issue while on-air.
It’s something of an understatement to say that E3 2013 has not gone well for Microsoft and Xbox One. At least there’s still Xbox 360, right?
In an interview filmed on Sunday before the Xbox E3 keynote, Microsoft’s President of Interactive Entertainment, Don Mattrick, expounded some pretty blunt views about his company’s Xbox product line.
Fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity; it’s called Xbox 360.
Mattrick has been one of the faces of Xbox One so far, having led the console’s launch announcement last month. Skip to a minute-fifty in to see Mattrick deliver the X-bomb.
Interviewer Geoff Keighley of Spike TV and Gametrailers.com rolled with Mattrick’s comment admirably, with barely a pause.
Right. So ‘stick with 360’, that’s your message if you don’t like it?
Bizarrely, and in spite Microsoft’s promotion of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, Mattrick recovered by declaring Xbox 360 an “offline device”. Weirder still, the Microsoft exec went on to discuss the difficulty of online gaming on a nuclear submarine.
I don’t even know what it means to be on a nuclear sub, but I’ve gotta imagine it’s not easy to get Internet connection… I can empathise. If I was on a sub I’d be disappointed.
Why on earth would you live there Don?
It’s been a long and awkward E3, but we learnt one thing from Mattrick’s gaffe. You can always trust a guy in a suit to tell it how it is.
Jesting aside, to take Mattrick’s comments in isolation is deeply unfair. Mattrick has been in the industry since he was 17 — longer than many of us have played games. His enthusiasm for Xbox One seems genuine.
It comes across from watching the full interview that he feels Xbox One is the next step in Microsoft’s idea of what a games, and entertainment, console should be. Here’s some Mattrick for you, from the same interview:
Xbox has been created by gamers for gamers… People are gonna see the same benefits with Xbox One as they’ve seen with their smartphone.
It’s easy for modern gamers to be cynical. When there’s so much choice handed to us, and a little bit of that is taken away, we react like spoilt kids. Maybe we’re not ready for the next-gen yet because we don’t deserve it.
Overworld Kiwami 