NexTechNews

Something strange I have been looking into lately has me wondering what Microsoft is up to. We all know the rumors surrounding Assassin’s Creed (The whole x05 announcement, and the “it’s running on a 360 at e3″, and how no one at Ubisoft will comment on other consoles besides the ps3), what I seem to have noticed is that quite a few games seem to be getting this “we won’t say it’s not for the 360″ treatment. The funny part is they aren’t small games, UT2007, Crysis, and Assassin’s Creed are just the biggies.

What i’ve been seeing is a change in marketing from the Microsoft camp, The xbox division seems to be the gungho part of Microsoft, catering to doing advertising just a little bit different and drastic. When the 360 was pre-release they had quite a few of their little “Viral marketing” sites that drove up a bunch of talk, but after people caught on to the marketing ploy of it, it kind of lost it’s effectivenesss, especially after other companys started doing it. Then at e3 2006 we saw the GTAIV announcement that pretty much shook everyone up quite a bit, GTAIV Exclusive Episodic Content and a release date side by side with the PS3. The announcement was a shocker not only because it was the first time GTAIV wouldn’t be a timed exclusive on the ps3, but this time Microsoft’s version would actually have an advantage over the Playstation version. Yes since then Sony has said that “they don’t care they are loosing exclusives” but then again this is coming from the company that said they would sell millions of PS3’s even if it couldn’t play games.

This “POP UP/Suprise” style marketing no one seems to have taken much notice of, but when you take the rumors of Assassin’s Creed all over the net, and UT2007 (TeamXbox still covering it for a “reason they can’t say, other than it’s a good reason”), and Crysis (no one willing to say for sure it’s a 360 title even though it’s an easy port since it’s directx) and put these rumors together with the fact Microsoft has 2 HUGE conferences coming up before the PS3 releases, namely TGS and X06 things start to look … interesting. We already know Microsoft is playing the counter release card with Gears of War countering the release of the PS3, but what would happen if on top of that you throw in some BIG Trailers and announcements at TGS or X06. I don’t know say Assasin’s Creed, Unreal Tournament 2007 and Crysis all for the 360 coming in 2007??? The buzz would be INSANE for the rest of the year till christmas! The forums lit up over the slightest rumors of the games coming to the 360, it’s unimagineable the amount of media it would light up if it became fact rather than just rumor!

The issue with our theory is that it’s just that a Theory, it’s based on market movements and microsofts xbox division’s history of advertising ideas. But in the end we won’t be able to know for sure until the upcoming conferences. I would suggest however not to be suprised if Microsoft has a bag of tricks behind it’s back we haven’t seen yet.

Source: Inhouse | UT2007 360 on Next-Gen | Teamxbox can’t say something about UT2007