Xbox 360 needs to shake 'urban, adult male feel' for Europe

During last month's Nordic Game 2008 conference, a number of industry analysts predicted that Microsoft will have a tough time gaining further footholds in European markets, where the company seems incapable of appealing to casual gamers.

Eurogamer is reporting that one of the conference's panels addressed the current condition of the global gaming market and, when it came time to look at how Microsoft was doing, harsh words seemed to dominate the discussion. The criticisms kept coming back to the perception that Microsoft seems unable to break into the casual gaming markets. Even though there are around 19 million 360s owned across the globe, the experts seemed divided on who the ultimate European winner would be in this generation.

Nick Parker, of Parker Consulting, said, "The trouble with Xbox 360 is it hasn't managed to shake off this urban, irreverent adult male feel; so it hasn't gained traction in the more casual gaming markets of mainland Europe such as France, Spain and Italy, where it's stalled." Parker's comments were mirrored by David Cole (from DFC Intelligence), who said that he thinks the next twelve months are going to be especially rough for Microsoft.

However, the panel also picked on Sony and Nintendo's recent gaffes. Sony was criticized for making too many different versions of its console, while Nintendo's ability to get consumers buying games instead of simply playing them socially was questioned.