Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Microsoft has come up with a great idea for its Xbox Live service by allowing its customers to make games for the Xbox 360 when it starts to sell the XNA Game Studio Express software, a stripped-down version of its game development tools, for $99.

A lot of people are excited at the prospect because they claim it taps into a new trend, that of customer innovation (which also happens to make John Grant’s top ten list for the main forms of marketing 2.0 strategy. The list is worth a look.) Jennifer Greene hits the nail on the head when she tells us why the initiative is such a big deal:

Why is this trend a big deal? In a nutshell, product development becomes a profit center. Customers pay Microsoft for the ability to create games for Microsoft’s Xbox platform. And by getting the tools into universities with game development programs, they’re building platform preference among future professional game developers.

I’d go a little further and highlight Microsoft executive Peter Moore’s quote “It’s our first step of creating a YouTube for videogames.” The more content you can make available for your users, the longer they’ll stay online. With Sony’s PS3 launch around the corner, Microsoft needs to use every trick in the book to get consumers locked into their service. While it might have lagged in console sales, the Xbox Live service has surpassed the rival Sony service (or lack of it.)

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