More XCN Woes...

While it seems that everyone else has accepted that Microsoft's claims at Leipzig that PES 6 will be Exclusive to the Xbox 360 for a year was false, the European Xbox Community Network seems to be simply ignoring the fact that the games creator has said the statement at the event was misleading.

In a recent Exclusive Q&A with Chris Lewis (Regional Vice President, Home and Entertainment Devices Division, Microsoft Europe) the comments remain thus: "...it's great to be able to say that for next-gen football gaming there's only one place for the next year: Xbox 360". When the game's Producer and Creator Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka is quoted on a number of sites as saying: "The presentation [at Leipzig] was misleading. We never said exclusive for one year on the next-gen platforms. We said this year. We were agreed that it was this year."

Seems odd that despite a number of e-mails to both Microsoft's PR company in the UK and the XCN Admin, I've still not had an official response about this discrepancy in what Microsoft and Konami are saying.

We did actually post the full interview up on BXB last night but I asked for it to be taken down because I'd rather not post up content which appears to be incorrect. It's another rather embarrassing gaff from the XCN that, despite my desire to support the venture, makes me question how well it's being run.

In a recent Q&A with Ubisoft, the XCN as a Community submitted a question that featured the word "configurate" instead of 'configure'. A small trifle of a matter? No. I've got plenty of experience from BXB that shows that small things like that can make a big difference in the perception of the people responsible. Why aren't the questions being submitted being vetted or proofed?

One question recently submitted from an unknown website about Dead Rising read as this: "What is the online side like, is it player v player or do you team up with people across Live? Or is it both?" Dead Rising isn't multiplayer. It's never been marketed as multiplayer and the grammar of the question is shot to pieces. Why was this question even submitted?

In a world that all about perception then these questions look very bad on the XCN and all of the sites involved.

So, I'm awaiting the response of DO to what I have to do with the problems in the Chris Lewis Q&A and I'm still having to give the team the OK to submit questions to the XCN Q&As and even post them when they return.

The other big rumour I've heard about the XCN recently is that they failed to supply MSxboxworld with a prize and ended up costing the site over two hundred English pounds. While I'm not privy to all the details, if this is true, it's well out of line. Fansites have enough problems getting funding without having to fork out hundreds of pounds of our own money.