Actually, the 360 is going to make Tupperware a thing of the past — Xbox 360 is the new flavor when it comes to cynical social gatherings between housewives who want to make their dreary lives more interesting by selling crap to their friends.
1,000 women across the US have been given $150 of Xbox-themed garbage in exchange to host an Xbox 360 party for at least ten friends and relatives. Nintendo tried a similar venture once before, but at least the family friendly Wii makes sense. The idea of a housewife hosting a fun family Xbox gathering just makes me feel kind of sick.
“We’ve sold 20 million consoles to date globally since we launched three years ago,” claims Heather Snavely, Microsoft’s director of interactive entertainment business global platforms. “In order to get to the next 20 million, we need to get a new audience of women and teens. We’re going after them in ways that are different than ways we’ve done before.”
The participating victims women use their own 360 consoles and demonstrate all the available services such as Netflix, Xbox Live and a stupid crappy snowglobe. I’m sure families will be more enthralled by that than they are with Wii Sports.
It seems that Microsoft is going all out with its rather blatant attempt to grab a piece of Nintendo’s pie, but it’s just making the company look grasping and cynical more than anything else. Family stuff is Nintendo’s bag, and Nintendo is good at that. Microsoft is terrible at it, and should stick to appealing and expanding the market it has rather than waste time trying to change the 360’s image after it’s already established its demographic and position.
Seriously … Xbox 360 Tupperware parties. Is this what MS is reduced to?
