14 DAY TRIAL // During a segment on Gamerscore Blog's latest podcast, Microsoft's Games for Windows' PR manager, Michael Wolf talks about why rumors such as those related to the recently announced Xbox 360 Elite, are extremely harmful for the game consumer, as they don't have access to the full context of the issue. Readers of such speculations get mere bits and pieces of the story and some of them are even totally wrong, like pricing for instance. Interview pieces selected by Gamasutra:
"For the Elite, for example, people were talking about the functionality and had pictures and all this stuff, but they didn't have the full story. They didn't know the price, they didn't know the accessories, they didn't know additional information that really puts a lot of context and a lot of information behind it," said GFW PR manager.
Wolf continued: "The reason why it's bad is because then you lose all the context. You lose all the facts that back it up, so that people hear the story once, understand it, and move forward, as opposed to hearing things bit by bit, piece by piece." So what do you think? Is this a bad thing for both gamers and company? It surely is, but not entirely, as we'll see how the interview progresses.
Wolf admits that rumors such as the ones containing leaked information on the Xbox 360 Elite, might just be a necessary evil: "With the way that Internet works we're just going to have to deal with it to some degree, but on the other hand, it's almost like there's so much information out there... you could say any publicity is good publicity, sort of play devil's advocate there a little bit." And since he was in the zone at this point, Wolf also explained why one of Microsoft's policies is not commenting on rumors: "...why we kind of have a stock phrase of 'we don't comment on rumor and speculation'... it doesn't add value to comment on a rumor if you don't have the full context and you're not ready to make a full announcement."
I've never seen an interview so rewarding such as this one. Finally, a company spokesman hits just the right spots and shuts everyone up. Wolf even gave a pertinent reason to back up the company's not commenting on rumors, so they're all set for the year. Now, let's see what that Elite can do that other consoles can't. Oh and, I think I speak for everyone here: that 120 gig HDD, yeah... it's a little pricey.