1. Edition: Antelope Valley Press
Page: C6 Daily SC
Rundate: Sunday, November 27, 2005
Byline: By BRENNA HUMANN Valley Press Staff Writer
Headline: X marks the spot
Caption: Contributed artist’s rendering of plans for the Xbox 360 Zero Hour launch event. Microsoft.com.
Story Text:
PALMDALE — As a vibrant green laser show cued taiko drummers to build their deafening rhythm to a pounding
crescendo, the doors of Plant 42’s hangar 703 slowly opened to reveal gamer nirvana, right here in Palmdale.
On Sunday, Nov. 20, Microsoft revealed its newest gaming system to an invitation-only crowd of thousands for a 34-hour,
all-nighter gaming extravaganza, including posh design, live rock, “kaiju” wrestling, a tattoo parlor, VIP lounges and
sneak-peek demos of never before seen, unreleased games — as well as a chance to buy the holy grail of this holiday
season, the Xbox 360.
So what’s the big deal? It’s just another game system in a long line of planned obsolescence ... right?
Well, not really. The Xbox 360 is the infant symbol of a ground-shaking trend in the entertainment world — the move
toward connectivity, or total compatibility, between the various entertainment devices we all own. Its unique
conceptualization as not merely a gaming console, but an entertainment hub, has ushered in a new age for the
entertainment devices we will be able to buy in coming years.
“It’s an entertainment device that does a lot more than play games — it’s a living room entertainment device that brings
the whole family together,” said John Ellard, A Group manager of Global Event Marketing for Xbox.
Xbox 360 consoles have surround sound and feature a widescreen format with high definition resolution, which gamers
insist can be noticeably observed even without an HD TV. The consoles also can be used as DVRs, if used in conjunction
with a Home Media program on Windows XP-equipped PCs.
The consoles’ screen display comes complete with an Xbox Guide main menu, much like that on a Tivo or DVR device,
that easily coordinates use of the device as a home media center. The menu includes everything from online gaming
scores, instant messages and “friends” lists, to digital photos, progressive-scan DVD viewing and music listening, through
CDs or MP3 players.

2. This media menu is actually accessed by a glowing “X” button found ... where else? ... on the game controllers
themselves, which are truly wireless, meaning the 2.4 gigahertz bandwidth they connect with works like that of a cordless
phone. They do not require “line-of-sight” to maintain a connection, like that of a TV remote, as past wireless game
systems have.
Use of the console also features a service called Xbox Live, a paid, centralized online gaming membership that’s like a
private Internet for gamers — an online world where one can play anyone, anywhere, including a voice-over function
which allows players to hear each other. The voice over function is a free part of Xbox Live that can even be used like a
broadband telephone at any time — only the online game play requires a fee.
It is, however, ultimately all about the games. Many of the new functions of the Xbox are intended to augment the
gaming experience, such as its music capability — a player’s personally chosen, ripped music can be played during a
game instead of its pre-existing soundtrack, for example.
The new features of the games themselves are also big news here. War games such as “Call of Duty” are presented in a
historical context that strives for accuracy — based, in many instances, on real-life stories acquired from interviews with
those who were there.
Fighting games such as “Dead or Alive 4” or “Perfect Dark Zero” feature fully reactive environments — puddles splash,
cars swerve, snowflakes blow and glass shards scatter, all with life-like randomness, because of a processing power and
memory that makes the console superior in its realism to the high-powered monitors and drives of computer gaming — a
feat never before achieved by a game system.
The system also has a remarkably large “backwards compatibility” for original Xbox games and some old arcade games.
This is a growing feature of many new systems. However, this incarnation makes such staples available on Xbox Live, so
friends can play old favorites together online.
But more than for gaming systems in general, the significance of the trends that Xbox symbolizes for world technology
and entertainment are enormous — and they chose Palmdale as the launch pad of one of the most closely followed
events in gaming history: Zero Hour.
The event stylized itself as a landmark consumer-based (rather than media-based) launch event, giving out free shirts,
memory cards and “Red vs. Blue” DVDs to fans. The party also included a live muralist painting a graffiti-style
amalgamation of “gamer tags,” or the quirky personal names that online players create to identify their characters, on
huge banners.
The personal character of this kind of marketing cannot be underestimated, nor can the significance of the symbols used
on the “viral marketing” Web sites that created a groundswell of hype for the launch.
The Palmdale event symbolizes the smashing success of viral marketing, an audience-involved advertising technique that
uses minimal expenditure to creating maximum buzz in a hardcore, targeted audience.
“The gaming community is so powerful, so vocal and vibrant, we thought we should do something for them,” said Ellard.
Viral marketing relies on Web users following fan sites to pass on supposedly leaked information to other sites and users
(like a disease), creating an almost exponential growth in effect.
This is accomplished when sites like Xbox’s Origin 360 international contest site (featuring a life-giving “origin tree”) and
Hex 168’s American version (featuring a mysterious crop circle), encouraged gamers through an almost religious
mysticism to incorporate the advertising symbols into their lives, and send images to the Web site as part of a
competition for VIP tickets to Zero Hour.

3. The choice of Palmdale as the host site of such careful staging and image-making was a deliberate move by event
planners, including the professional production company Zed Ink, which promoted the image of the Antelope Valley and
Mojave desert as a site of mystery and cutting edge technology.
A Zero Hour flier specifically capitalized on the mystique of space-age aerospace history (specifically that at Plant 42) and
the Amboy Crater off Route 66, the desolation of the desert landscape, and the Hollywood connection of sites such as
Plant 42 and Pear-blossom Highway.
“It’s remote enough to feel like you have to make a journey, like a ‘Burning Man’... it has a sense of mystery and cool. It
created a good story for us,” said Ellard. “If things shake out the way we want them to, we wouldn’t hesitate to use this
venue again.”
It has been said that the rabid anticipation of the Xbox 360 is due to the general lack of such innovations in recent years
— it has been about five years since the release of a competitor system to the Xbox, and the market is ready. But
Microsoft has found itself in a bit of a bind since the launch last week, suffering some backlash from the angry multitudes
who pre-ordered and found their reservations postponed until later, unconfirmed shipments — not to mention harried
holidays buyers who believed they’d be able to simply go out and buy one.
Pre-orders began as early as last May, when the device premiered at the famous E3 expo, but they largely maxed out in
October, when most game shops ceased their issuance, being unable to meet demand before the console even launched.
However the market turns out, Xbox has marked Palmdale as the site that will go down in gamer history as one of the
largest game system launches the industry has so far seen.