News
Microsoft to Begin Massive Casual Games Advertising Campaign
Apparently to Prove they are “Bigger than Jesus”
by Coop
Microsoft is readying their largest advertising campaign in years, spending more than they did on the original Xbox, Xbox 360, and Halo 3’s advertising campaigns. They are calling it 'Live Your Moment' and it’s set to hit American airwaves in the near future, reportedly spending tens of millions of dollars on a casual games blitz. Titles such as Lips, Scene It, You're In The Movies, and other less-than-hardcore titles will be featured during awful television shows like Dancing With the Stars and Grey’s Anatomy, ensuring that gamers around the world will never see the commercials. That’s fine, though, this advertising campaign isn’t for us, it’s for Middle America, the kind of people who think Wii Music sounds like a fantastic idea and that the “red ring of death” is the final round in a reality TV show.
I don’t understand this move much – why spend that much on casual games if there are only a few titles coming out? Either Microsoft has a dozen or so more casual games up their sleeve or, uh, they are wasting a bunch of money.
[Via Casualgaming.biz]
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Comments
don't hate on dancing with the stars, coop. it's providing ABC with 6 full hours of programming this week alone! (seriously. that is not a joke. look it up.)
You spend the money on the advertising because you expect to get it back in sales. Core gamers are already attracted to the 360, but casual gamers tends to be a euphemism for Wii owners. This makes a lot of sense on MS's part since, despite Coop's hating, Dancing with the Stars and Grey's Anatomy are two of the highest rated shows on television. If you start in the fall getting moms and dads used to the idea that the 360 is a casual game machine, it becomes easier to release the purse strings when junior starts asking for it around holiday time.
Yeah Mellow, but not many of those games qualify as casual.