Zero Hour - Mojave Desert - 11/20,21,22

Zero Hour, the culmination of multiple viral marketing (guerilla marketing) campaigns put on by Zed, AKA the Xbox team within Microsoft. Why was it done in the middle of the Mojave desert? To attract only the hardest core, most serious gamer enthusiasts... early adopters... trend leaders. Only 3,000 members of the general public were admitted into Zero Hour with over 64,000 applicants worldwide. While I was there I met people from California, Missippi, Chicago... all the way to Poland and Japan including MS execs all the way from Australia and the UK.

J Allard, Corporate Vice President and Chief XNA Architect was there, I met him. Clinton Fowler, J's mountain biking friend who also works on the Xbox team was there as well :) and I got the chance to ask him EVERY Xbox/MS question I could think of. Not to mention Peter Moore, Cliff Blezinsky and many others. All of these guys work hard, you can just tell by talking with them. Clinton was planning to stay up for the entire 29hr stretch of Zero Hour (which doesn't include the 2.5hr trip it takes to get to or from LAX to Palmdale. It was amazing to speak with such dedicated and influential people. Almost every person at the event was important to Microsoft, hardly any of them were "hired hands".

My interactions with Clinton, and others, began when they helped me with an Xbox 360 service featured at the event. Clinton helped me register and convert my Xbox Live account inside of this crazy white bubble tent (you can see the tent in the picture on the left). I spoke with another exec named Richard Irving out at the parking lot where he was handing out wristbands. I talked with all of these guys so much during the event that I ended up playing the Xbox 360 for less than an hour over the course of the entire 29hr event!

Artist rendition of the Xbox 360 Zero Hour event

I have to give these guys props, they pulled this event off with world class. It was surreal to see a rendering of how the event "would look" online when I found out I was going, and then to actually see it in real life and have it match exactly. It was also envigorating to see a giant green light in the desert on the night of the 20th when we were first arriving, it was like "that's it, that's amazing!" The fact that I was able to hook up with a friend who lives in Chicago at the LAX and then trust eachother enough to drive down to Palmdale together and split a hotel is a testimate to the community Microsoft has fostered. I have beta tested over ten top PC, PS2, and Xbox titles so I know what's out there in terms of community, and what kinds of promotions are being done in this industry. Hats off to all of the hardworking individuals who made this a possibility, this post is about your comittment and passion for the community. Special thanks to Marilyn Ishak, Ceasar, Ryan from Gamespot, Arne Meyer from Edelman, and Simon Jones from digitaloutlook.

For more on Zero Hour check out stories from GameSpot, IGN, G4 here & here, and a fan weblog called lowdown411

Xbox 360 Load Times To Fast?

Now this might sound like a strange topic, load times being to fast... but let me explain the problem before you call me crazy.

I just picked up a copy of Kameo and popped it into the 360, started the game, and watched the cinematic intro. All was well. The problem started when I progressed into the game a bit and ran into load times between diferent levels. The game puts up a loading screen and during the short wait a story element plot sequence is displayed in text. I'm not sure how critical the short paragraph is to the overarching story but I would shure like to read it IF IT DIDN"T LOAD SO FAST and force the text off the screen before I was through. In the older generations of game consoles you would have plenty of time to read story elements or hints durng load times but with newer hardware and 512MB of ram at their disposal for the Xbox 360 I think it's important for software developers like Rare to give us readers an option such as "begin level" which would hold the text up there a bit longer and only change the screen after we hit a button or something.

I experienced this problem/agrivation with Call of Duty 2 as well but to a much lesser extent. Call of Duty 2 displays these cool war quotes during load periods and also when you die, but sometimes it loads so fast that you don't finish the quote! I have almost been tempted to die on purpose just to finish the quote...

Xbox 360 Adidas Commercial

The Adidas commercial that comes preloaded on the Xbox 360 premium edition keeps crashing my system? It gets all the way to the end and then bam, my system shuts off and the lights on the front do a flashing red signal? Is anyone else getting this...

On a more positive note, the commercial is pretty cool, it features pro soccer players running on a field made of metal beams where anyone could fall off into space! They do a lot of acrobatic tricks and guys keep getting knocked off the sides, it's pretty extreme.

When I was a Zero Hour in the Mojave Desert at Hangar 71 Adidas stuff was sort of interlaced with the Xbox 360 signage. We all received Adidas hoodies with Zero Hour printed on them and they still had the price tags attached stating $49.99 which made us feel pretty special. Adidas also erected "the worlds largest foosball table" outside of the hangars and it featured a lifesized soccer ball as the foosball! Inside of the hangars there were small Adidas advertisements and a few plastic stands with Adidas shoes inside of them.

Xbox 360 Rants

okay here goes:

with regard to the new "jump in" commercial: okay, marketing? It's all about communicating the feelings that products "will" give you, you don't focus on features - you focus on benefits. Graphics and bling are all features, the benefits are unclear for the broad masses (we do not represent the broad masses here at teamxbox okay) so when you see people of different cultures and lifestyles all having fun together, boys, girls, men, women, BMX bikers, two chubby chicas... all jumping rope together you see the benefits of a social gaming system that is open for anyone to just "jump in" and this slogan is short and concise so as not to be overwhelming and "complicated" two things that computers and high end games are well known for...
Microsoft is doing just what they said, reaching out to a broader audience, using feelings and simplicity :)

with regard to the complete package (with the chrome drive plate): Okay, so everyone has been complaining about how the chrome doesn't exactly match the white on the complete systems? Well, at first I was in the same boat... I like to have a streamlined cohesive look to my high end electronics, especially monitors and computers and stuff. After spending some time looking at both systems in pictures and reading about the 360 I came to a realization:begin realization transmission: the chrome will reflect the colors of the faceplate! Maybe it clashes a bit with white or draws too much attention, but with 99.9% of the other color faceplates the chrome is the obvious winner vs. the white. Can you imagine that hulking white door with any of the custom faceplates? maybe a few, but I know the chrome looks great with so many more!