The most anticipated game system of the holiday season is due in stores next week, and the all-too-familiar company behind it might not be readily apparent.
The Xbox console is, like many teen-agers, embarrassed to be seen with its parents. In its $500 million worldwide advertising blitz, Microsoft's name will appear in tiny type, if at all.
If the software maker is mentioned, it'll be to appeal to gamers' parents, says John O'Rourke, the company's director of games marketing.
Xbox is due out on Thursday during Comdex -- and could a more appreciative crowd be found that day anywhere than in Las Vegas? It's part of Microsoft's push to build (and bill it) as a unique and very un-Microsoft brand, one appealing to the 16- to 26-year-old male "hard-core gamer" whose acceptance is critical.
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