We've been chatting with Microsoft minister of propaganda Aaron Greenberg, wanting to crack open his head like a big beautiful coconut and gorge on the milk inside. Greenberg is a man known for sparking controversy with his statements, and his interviews are often followed by a flurry of fanboy rage. We wanted to see what he thinks about the fanboys that argue over his words, and what it's like to be such an industry firestarter.
"Well, it’s interesting because when you really think about the reality of it, there are many different media outlets covering the gaming business and each journalist has a specific set of questions they would like answered on a regular basis," explains Greenberg. "What I try to do is to answer as many of these questions as I can and to be accessible to folks like you. I also don’t want to be the guy that just gives everyone the same standard approved response; I want to engage in a thoughtful dialogue with you and your readers and be as open and direct as I can.
"I realize this candor may at times spark emotions and of course I like it better when the emotions are positive ones, but even when they aren’t, it’s great to be part of the dialog. This industry is full of people who feel passionately about gaming, and being part of that conversation is one of the more interesting parts of my job."
And what about these so-called console wars that everyone gets so upset about? Hit the jump for Greenberg's opinion on the long and bitter struggle for fanboy supremacy.
"To me it is just like the passion people have for the favorite sports team, whether you are a fan of the Cowboys or Steelers or ManU or Chelsea, your loyalty runs deep," explains the Microsoft stallion. "I would also say that I am a competitive person and work for a competitive company, so while I recognize that different people will root for different teams, I would love to win as many games as possible and win over as many Xbox fans as possible.
"I think this competitive nature is reflected in our products, it is what drove us to push for things like the New Xbox Experience, 'Project Natal' and even securing franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear and Final Fantasy. At the end of the day, I see this constant focus on always being the best we can and giving our owners new experiences as a positive thing in the long-term."
I must congratulate Aaron on managing to namedrop Project Natal into nearly all of his answers. This man is good at his job.
Contest:
9:40 AM on 01.15.2010
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They both make you look retarded?
I wish I was paid to do that, too. However, you need to lose any kind of intellectual honesty to do his kind of job, I'm not cut for it. :S
UGH!! Do games really need more bad press? The less educated/sheep already think that games kill kitten and cause abortions; the last thing we need is them thinking that games cause massive riots and civil unrest.
Then again, PS3 fanboys are kinda like Raiders fans I guess. Scary looking/do not want to be near them, and kinda silly.
I'm what you would call an 'Arsenal dickhead' I live in Arsenal (Highbury), and absolutely love football, and support the Arsenal, fittingly, as they are my local team. Arsenal fans are some of the most mild mannered in the country, though of course, we have our fair share of Idiots. I just love how fucking retarded some gamers attitudes are towards sports.
Idiots don't need a badge. Idiots are just idiots. For example, the PS3 seems to attract the worst kind of internet commentary I have ever come across in any internet discussion ever. But I would be a fool to assume that the PS3 is a console made specifically for idiots. Do try to think a bit further, old boy, ther's a good chap.
No. I just think it would be really funny.
Did the man also discover that water is wet?
Major League Baseball or College Football? Not so much, I don't see how they're "your" team. They don't let you step out on the field and play with them or invite you to hang out with them afterwards, but fans will talk like they do.
Red rings....new dashs that leave people's old themes useless...new dashs that are slower and often stalled....games that drop regularly between 6-9 PM (at least where I am in Texas) from too busy servers...a Zune interface (for people like me who don't even have a Zune) that now causes the 360 to freeze if you ever try to open a video...
That's trying your best? Try harder.
Hope your Project Natal doesn't brick as many consoles as past updates ever have.
Xbox is a lot like playing Saboteur. I still love it ultimately, despite it's like they try so hard to push me away. Clean up your act, 360! I still want you!
Okay...now this is getting weird. Feel like I'm talking to that ex-girlfriend junkie I knew.
But he is right. Fanboyism is the same as sport fanatics....and religions really. It's all the same. People who have lost perspective on reality and cling to something a little too tightly in order to feel like something in their life matters or has meaning.
Although I don't see why worshiping a piece of hardware is any stranger than worshiping before a Nazi Pope. Can't stop people from needing to cling to their teddy bears from the scary big bad world. And that's all fanboys are an extension of.
WHAAAAT!?!
On another note i was just visiting my sister in law, and her son was playing halo3, wow, that game is shit, looks like shit, plays like shit, is generally fucking aweful. I watched him spend ages getting into a match of shiney floaty wanky space marines running/sliding around emptying clips into each other and bashing them with the wierd guns over and over and over and over. Also the 360 dashboard? Fuck me that's just horrible!!
That spectator experience has left no doubt in my mind that the argument that the 360 is better or even comes close to the ps3 is completely ridicutarded.
Even my mrs (who is a total non-gamer) was like "wow, i see what you mean about your ps3 being way better, that looked really shit"
while I agree that halo is absolute shite. Your argument about the dashboard is ludacris. Unless it wasn't updated to the new xbox experience. The 360 dashboard is just as user friendly and nice to look at as the xmb. Your fanboy is showing.
Congrats are in order?
So Halo 3 looking shit to you has lead you to claim that, has it? Well I played a bit of Fifa10 on the PS3, and it took fucking ages to load, and didn't look any better than the Xbox version despite taking twice as long to get into a game. So does that cancel out your argument? By your retarded logic it should.
Happy new year, by the way ;o)
You love BOTH the cards and cubs??? You certainly are a rare breed. As a cubs fan the cardinals are among my most hated teams.
Except for when he makes little boo-boos like saying the 360 sold 10million in NA for 2009, when it was actually 10 million globally. lol
"Fan =/= Fanboy"
It's true, but in reality people have a hard time not pooping on other sides to make yours seem better. Calling the other team cheats, calling the referees sellouts, saying Shitstation or Crap Box, that's what people mostly do.
I live in Illinois but closer to the Lou than chitown:) don't worry eventually the cubbies have to win a championship:) right? Lol.
Seriously though, watching Halo was terrible, just horrible, I spent the whole time thinking, "how can anyone love this game? Let alone the horde of Halo fanboys out there, I mean, shit it's like going back to the FPS games of the 90's!"
Sure some multiplats are a little better on the 360, that's what you get when you turn a PC into a console and port games to it. But Halo is supposed to be some kind of 360 flagship!!!
I'm 100% certain now that PS3 exclusives completely smash the shit out of 360 exclusives.
You're all welcome to your own opinions, but that's mine.
And dashboard? You like it? really? A big mess of adverts and silly little cartoon people? Wow. Sure I'm not used to the "New Experience" but I had no idea what was going on... Advert, cartoon person, game screen, advert, Zune thing, adverts, more adverts, buy Army of two, buy Halo reach, here's the disc you've got in, buy extra shit for it, here's your little cartoon person, here's an ugly ass list of yur cheevos, start game, silly names for game types, waiting for players, waiting for players, waiting for players, waiting for players, waiting for players, zap zap pew pew, beat down beat down beat down beat down beat down....
Seriously, I've got into MAG games quicker!
congrats on the baby. I'm a father of 3 boys myself:) I agree there's alot of advert. on live but the xmb has it's share. Again I'm not saying ones better than the other. They both sereve there purpose to a T. I think with live it's easier to find and join up with my friends. I also can't stand not being able to listen to my own music while playing most ps3 games. That's one thing I loved about kz2:)
The XMB only has "adverts" for Playstation software and PSN services, and they're tucked away in the What's New section. Don't make it sound like there are Mountain Dew and Burger King ads plastered all over it.
I didn't make it sound like shit. All I said was the xmb wasn't advert. free. I also said I like them both equally. Chillout fanboy. Did I hit a nerve?
I sincerely hope this isn't the first time you've actually played or seen a 360 played. Considering you spend most of your time on Destructoid bashing the system, I'd have thought you were, you know, an informed gamer.
Guess not.
I personally like the NXE dashboard much better than my PS3's XMB (though I do enjoy the orchestra-tuning at the beginning). NXE might have a lot of ads, but it takes me exactly two button pushes from startup (Up, Y) to play the disc in my drive, two (Guide, Y) to exit back to the dashboard, and it's just as easy to invite all your friends to join thr game you're playing.
Seems pretty streamlined and user friendly to me.
Not when the article in question is ABOUT fanboys!
I can get around the XMB nice and quickly too, when you're counting button presses, you care too much. Sure, once you're used to both they're both very easy to use, but seeing the NXE for the first time was a bit of a shock, I'm used to my nice clean simple XMB, it was a bit of a shock to the system to see the NXE and I personally thought it was horrible.
The old Dashboard I thought was a bit better, even still, I didn't rate it personally.
@HEL105 - Right. Grow up.
Music while playing games? You want to speak to MS about that one, it's like patenting the ability to record TV while watching it. Low blow. At least some devs put it into their games as custom soundtracks. It's a very minor gripe of mine, but I find the games I'd want to include it do, namely racing games, Wipeout has custom soundtracks and if GT5 takes a leaf out of GTPSP's book, it will too.
I think that's the big difference, MS has bought up, patented and controls everything they thought would be useful, where as Sony leaves a lot more up to the devs. Not better, just different, and Sony's way is less of a "let's fuck the competition to make us look better" and more "let's just be better".
It's mostly the rantings on this site that made me expect some kind of god like amazing online gaming experience from the 360, but with watching CoD games drop out and the long waits to find players in Halo 3 made me realise that they are pretty much identical apart from the fact that LIVE is paid for and riddled with irritating ads, and PSN is free and apart from the "what's new" feature, ad free.
Like I say PERSONALLY after witnessing the current state of 360 and LIVE, I have no doubt that the PS3 PSN experience completely smashes LIVE out of the park.
I was a little dissapoint, you guys made me expect so much from the 360.
your friends "graduated to the PS3"? what class were they in? the remedial class? like english as a second language class? i dont get it.
you were "used to your clean and simple XMB"? i dont even need to argue with this one. having both i understand sony developers cant beat those monkeys they test in labs to arrange boxes so they can get food.
"Like I say PERSONALLY after witnessing the current state of 360 and LIVE, I have no doubt that the PS3 PSN experience completely smashes LIVE out of the park."
watching someone smoke crack doesnt mean you know anything about it. what your doing is saying "oh i smoke weed. i know EVERYTHING there is to know about smoking crack."
having both i can easily say being able to easily mute players in game lobbies is well worth the $3.30 i pay a month for live. also i appreciate that i dont have to make two logins (or more for certain ps3 exclusives *ahem* MGS4 *ahem*) to be able to play online.
and uh "Sony's way is less of a "let's fuck the competition to make us look better" and more "let's just be better"."
perhaps youve never been to the real world. your comment is like saying the kid on the playground who never gets picked for sports because hes fat and slow just saying "i dont care about you guys- i know im good!" but still never gets better because he never plays. this is the REAL WORLD. in NO money market in our society can you say "fuck the competition". think about professional sports. if you want to win the prize you have to work hard at being the best. saying "i dont care if we win- i know we're better!" is whats kept the detroit lions a team for the last 20 years, even though they are pretty much a laughing stock of the NFL.
just a lil perspective there </troll>