Really enjoyable read here on how Microsoft’s web design jumped into such a modern, approachable design. Pay special attention to author Nishant’s “four tenets” web design presentation at the beginning; I like his emphasis on responsive design.
Peter Pachal for Mashable:
Sagi Haviv, who designed logos for the Library of Congress and Armani Exchange, thinks the logo simply isn’t distinctive enough. By opting for a simple array of four colored squares, Haviv says Microsoft missed a big opportunity…
…As Haviv explains, logo designers constantly struggle to create imagery that’s both simple and distinctive. Too much of one often means not enough of the other. In Microsoft’s case, he says it veers that while the new logo is definitely simple, it fails the distinctiveness test.
I agree. Microsoft had the opportunity to really try something bold here but instead they went the ultra conservative route. You can see a similar designer debate over at this Dribbble discussion.
Essential reading for technology fans who want to avoid crushing, poorly managed corporate culture. The “curve” rating system that required ranking of team members, struck me as especially damming. Yet overall I was a bit disappointed by Kurt Eichenwald’s writing. It felt overwhelmingly one sided and at times a bit superficial. If poor practices like the curve ranking system weren’t liked by almost anyone interviewed, why did they exist? Was it Ballmer? High amounts of red tape? I wanted a bit of a deeper dive here.
The Verge’s Paul Miller wrote a solid article on how the big three console companies will evolve:
In the game world, where the topic of “casual” vs “hardcore” gaming is still a hot-button issue, Microsoft has side-stepped and pulled its chips off the table: it’s just mainstream. When Microsoft and Sony built Kinect and Move, respectively, to compete with the then-dominant Wii, they were both making a casual play. When the backlash came a year later, as hardcore gamers felt like they were being abandoned, Sony was quick to shore up that fanbase, but Microsoft kept it casual.
I wouldn’t quite go so far as saying Microsoft is “just” mainstream but Paul is on the right track. You can substitute ‘mainstream’ here with ‘evolving’; Sony is steadfast on 3D and the hard core market while Nintendo has a multiplayer network out of the 90s and regurgitating IPs from the 80s. Only Microsoft acknowledges the mobile elephant in the room.
As most gaming analysts predicted, this was a pretty quiet year for E3 news. Companies made very conservative moves and announcements given we’re at the end of this generation’s consoles. Several console manufacturers are also wary of making a costly misstep as mobile gaming devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad) eat up an increasing amount of their market share.
However, there were a few major trends worth noting.
The 3DS wasn’t a strong seller out of the gate. Wii sales have crumbled. Nintendo is gambling a lot on its Wii U, and from what I’ve seen from E3, it looks like a non starter console. I’m aware that’s a strong prediction, but let’s break down what we’ve seen. First of all there’s the price, rumored to launch at $300. That’s almost surely cheaper than the next generation of consoles that Sony and Microsoft will offer. But then factor in the cost of those bulky controllers that I’d predict are far north of $100 each. That’s not exactly family friendly territory. There are other hardware problems as well: a controller only lasts for 3-5 hours per charge. It likely has a processor only marginally more powerful than a current gen Xbox 360 or PS3.
Finally, there’s a lack of compelling software. Nintendo’s E3 presser was depressingly conservative, even by Nintendo standards – few new IPs, no new Zelda or extra details on Paper Mario. Their flagship launch title NintendoLand doesn’t appear to have the crossover success of Wii Sports. And has Nintendo secured third party support? The company’s failure in that aspect really tanked long term sales of the Wii. The trend threatens to repeat itself with the Wii U.
Note that there are plenty of dissenters with my outlook. Josh Topolsky over at the Washington Post praised Nintendo’s “heads-down, single-minded mentality.” Time also defends Nintendo well, making some especially strong points regarding its hardware. Also Pimkin 3 looks great, but it doesn’t change my feeling that Nintendo could be out of the hardware business within a few years if it isn’t more careful.
Microsoft had the best of the pre-E3 press conferences this year. It was yes, conservative, but it balanced the hardcore gaming and “casual” multimedia camps well. Most importantly, don’t underestimate SmartGlass. SmartGlass is a companion app for mobile devices (Windows phones, iOS, Android) that gives users the ability to control and interact with games and other XBox content. For instance, on the latest Madden you can preview and select plays before the huddle. For a TV show or movie extra bonus content is synced and displayed in SmartGlass as you watch. The Verge put together a nice preview.
Granted, Microsoft has pushed the multimedia convergence angle on every recent E3 and ended up bombing most of the time. Last year the Kinect got the hard sell. This year saw Internet Explorer for XBox, a total head scratcher. But SmartGlass is different because it’s not about selling a service or device that you have to run out and buy. A huge percentage of Microsoft’s target audience already has an iOS or Android phone, and as long as developers have incentive to make SmartGlass functionality, it could be a huge incentive to stick with the XBox over an Apple TV or Roku (there’s a nice Hacker News thread discussing this topic.)
There were a few new IPs announced that look incredible like Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs and Star Wars 1313 from LucasArts. However, their developers are cagey with regard to launch platforms. Watch Dogs may someday come to PS3 and XBox 360 but these E3 demos were clearly running on high-end PCs. I bet those demo PCs closely mirror the specs of Sony’s and Microsoft’s next gen consoles.
I’d expect any game without an early 2013 release date will debut on both current gen and next gen platforms. I’d also predict that next year is going to look very dry for console gaming as platforms shore up support for their big next gen console launches. That’s going to be a very interesting tech period. Mobile gaming will have matured by a full year, and the iOS ecosystem will be likely far more comprehensive, revolving around a completely revamped and relaunched Apple TV. Will console gaming thrive or weaken? It’s hard to say but we’ll know a lot more a year from now.
There was some excellent gaming analysis on the latest Hypercritical episode. Host John Siracusa breaks down the E3 pressers and how Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are positioned for future competition. Pay special attention to the last 20 minutes where the hosts discuss how Apple fits into all of this. (Spoiler: it’s console gaming’s biggest threat by far.)
Gamespot writer Hilary Goldstein argues how Microsoft should shape the Xbox successor to remain competitive. I’m not so hot on her arguments for “Kinect integration for all games” (many games are better addressed with a standard controller) or to bundle an HD Kinect on every system (guaranteed to push system costs up by at least $50-100, which would hurt Microsoft against its competition). Still, many make a lot of sense: throw in Blu-ray, raise the bottom end system setup, and branch off into new first party gaming franchises.
Video game consoles are still putting up great numbers seven years into their current generation. But why have their user interfaces remained so bad? I was reminded of this on a popular Giant Bombcast (gaming podcast) from two weeks ago; the hosts talked at length about the sad state of Microsoft’s latest XBox Live UI refresh. Microsoft largely sidelined avatar functionality, one of the rare bits of personalization and whimsy from an otherwise business-like UI. The Netflix interface was overhauled so poorly that the hosts had moved their film streaming needs to other platforms. Common actions now required more taps of the controller than in earlier XBox Live iterations.
Ironically, XBox Live is generally regarded as the premier console gaming network. It costs $50 a year and generates a lot of revenue for Microsoft, a cool billion two years ago. So why isn’t some of that money being plowed back into great UI design?
The XMB, Sony’s navigation interface for the PS3, doesn’t fare well in the UI department either. Among the Roku, Apple TV, Mac, iPhone, and Boxee, all of which I own or have played with heavily, PS3 has the worst user experience. There’s too many actions and layered menus to get more complex actions done. Software updates, large in size and not skippable, pop up frequently before gameplay. (Sony apparently never got the memo on auto background updates.)
Yet UI may be beside the point: clearly the healthy state of console gaming’s market derives from the games themselves. But that market is changing, growing up and moving more mainstream. XBox 360s are being used now more for streaming media than gaming. A “one box media center” for the living room could just as easily be an XBox as a Roku or an Apple TV. Media partners clearly see this; content providers from Amazon to ESPN and HBO are supporting consoles in full, often adding their services to the XBox and PS3 just as fast as other set top devices.
In addition, while a Xbox 360 or PS3 costs $150 more than an Apple TV, that a premium price tag delivers far more capable hardware. It’s hardware that powers more immersive games, along with more responsive and novel interfaces (e.g. the Kinect) than their cheaper counterparts. Beefier hardware also means getting cool tech features (e.g. Dolby Digital 5.1, 1080p) before the competition.
Yet as we’ve seen before, muscular tech, lots of money and media partners will only get you so far without a solid user experience; just ask RIM. Competition is heating up: Apple and the rest of the portable market is on one side, chipping away at consoles’ casual gaming segment. Smaller, cheaper and simpler boxes from the likes of Roku form the other wing, attacking consoles’ non-gaming features. Without a adjustment in UI and other consumer-friendly maneuvers, I fear gaming consoles could be effectively squeezed out in the middle.
There’s been of takes on the Lumia 900 this week, yet I’m fascinated most by Ars Technica’s Casey Johnston’s analysis on the shortcomings of the Metro UI:
[At times] the large fonts that characterize the OS take up too much valuable screen real estate.
The headers in the Outlook app, for instance, have a lot of breathing room. It makes the layout look nice, and choosing to display your contacts’ names in the largest font, twice the height of the rest, rather than the subject or snippets of content presumably makes you feel popular and keeps it people-centric. But I generally care just as much, if not more, about the subject and content preview than the sender, which are grayed out compared to the sender’s name.
In Mail on iOS, you can customize the font and the number of lines of the message preview, but Windows Phone provides no such options. Because of all the white space and large font, and the inability to fix that through settings, I can skim less of my e-mail at once, requiring more scrolling to go through it all. These information-sparse design cues extend to many of the third-party apps we tried, including Yelp and Twitter, where screen real estate often seems wasted by big fonts and white space.
I’m generally critical of the opposite problem on the web: a lot of websites, especially those on the arts/fashion side of things tend to emphasize small, 10 or 11px font as a primary body font. Yet in the process of going big, you can go too far – it looks like Metro fell down that trap.