Earlier this year Microsoft canceled Inside Xbox and members of that service subsequently went on to form a new company. The big M has finally discussed in a little more detail why such a decision to cancel the service was made. Chris Lewis from Xbox Europe spoke to Eurogamer at E3 and stated: “We just felt it had reached a logical and natural position where we felt that we had a strong voice to that community in any case. We’ve got 40 million people on Xbox Live, we know that audience closely follows what we’re up to, so we felt it was logical [to close it].”
Also in response to queries about Inside Xbox’s cancelation, he went on to say, “The key to answering your question though is our commitment to keep bringing that kind of content to satisfy the appetite of that audience.
“We have no desire to move away from that. In my opinion, we are focussed on it more than ever – understanding how to target that audience, how not to alienate that audience.”
He went on however, to reiterate Microsoft’s intentions to have the Xbox serve more purposes: “But to be clear, we’ve got more casual gaming experiences we want to bring – we’ve got music, we’ve got entertainment, we want to bring fitness and lifestyle to Xbox 360 like the stuff you saw with Nike, all of which is possible through Kinect. Those things allows us to realise our vision.
“We want to be the entertainment hub in the living room – the box of choice in every respect, whether it is hardcore gaming, fitness, music, whether its browsing, voice search. We think we’re so well placed in regards bringing that to life versus anybody else.”
In response to Lewis’ comments, Dan Maher, formerly of Inside Xbox and now part of Explosive Alan Productions said via Twitter: “Hearing tales of plans to plug the gap left by IX. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I’m craughing”
(Via Eurogamer)