On being "Microsofty"

If you are wondering what I mean when I carp about Microsoft's general inability to get things intuitive and right, this video will show you what I mean:

(It's 24 minutes, which is ridonkulously long, so you were warned)

In short, they are trying to show off the new features and:

2:20 -- tried to use left hand for "back," gets the pause feature to pop up

3:40 -- they break the voice command then they can't get it to pause.

4:15 -- "what the hell did I do?" I dunno how you got it back to the Kinect hub, either, dude.

Only five minutes! But see, this is what I mean when I talk about Microsoft being Microsofty. It is also what I mean when I am watching streaming "Downton Abbey" from Netflix on the Xbox and some character says something that makes it start to fast-forward (or reverse, or stop, or whatever), and you basically find it does this so often you have to disable the voice commands altogether so you can just find out whether the daughter will stay on course to marry her distant cousin after her mother learns she is preggers and might just save the family estate from falling into said distant cousin's hands.

Watching streaming video is sketchy enough, I'm curious to see how the actual gameplay comes out with voice commands so totally integrated. There seems to be a potential downside to such attentiveness on the part of the system and developers.

All that said, I would absolutely LOVE to see Microsoft get all things Xbox right. Not only have I invested in the Kinect system (by buying it, not by owning a ton of MS stock), but it's a great company that is deeply supportive of my beloved Pacific Northwest, and I want to see it flourish for all kinds of selfish reasons, whether it's my game system or my community reaping the benefits.

Why Kinect?

The first time I seriously considered getting a videogame system for myself, I was playing with a Wii. It was me, my much younger cousins (like, in high school), and "Just Dance 2." I could have played that game all day with them.

My exercise life was in a bit of a transition at the time. My longtime aerobics instructor had just left the classes I'd depended on for fitness, and my work schedule was making increasing demands on my time. My local Y is overcrowded, and I don't get excited much out of the fitness machines, if I can even get the one I want. The Wii appealed to me, and "Just Dance 2" was precisely the kind of thing I liked to do -- boogie down.

So when I went home, I thought to myself that maybe a Wii was right for me. At the time, the Kinect had just come out, and when I started Googling around, I made these notes:

1) Kinect had no controller except your body. I'm in my 30s and a decade of desk jobs had given me some carpal-tunnelly/repetitive motion-y type stuff in my right wrist. Gripping a Wiimote was not something I wanted to do all day. Also, being in my 30s and basically having never played much in the way of videogames, I was not into the whole controller thing. Too many buttons, too much pressure to make the right combinations, too much Skinner-boxing. I want to use all my muscles, and I don't need anything that keeps me on my butt. (My decision was further confirmed when the new Wii was shown to have an iPad-like controller. Clever, but no thank you, I do not do traditional push-the-button gaming, I am an old lady.)

2) "Just Dance 2" was published by Ubisoft, a company which had just announced its intentions to be the number one third party videogame publisher for Kinect. Since "Just Dance 2" was a huge winner for me, I thought, "Dude, that sounds perfect."

3) The reviews for Kinect were ecstatic. Its sales were already breaking records, and it seemed like a pretty sure bet that developers would fill the gap of its fairly paltry initial game offerings. Plus, what existed at the outset seemed to fill most of my basic needs. It doesn't matter if there aren't a lot of games as long as the few you need are on offer, and as long as better ones come along as time goes on. Right?

A couple of things nagged at me. First, there was the fact that it is a Microsoft system. I'm sorry, but Microsoft has always offered products with counter-intuitive, over-buttoned, over-optioned, not-quite-working-right clutter. Nintendo is sort of the Mac of the videogame world, albeit softer and fuzzier. Playstation is the Unix (in the sense that hardcore gamers, like my brother, use this system). By this equation, I should be a Nintendo person, considering the Playstation Move as my backup. But the Move doesn't seem to generate much enthusiasm at all, and Nintendo is headed in a touchscreen direction.

Second, there was the cost. The Xbox and Kinect are freaking expensive. No getting around that.

There was a lot of dithering room, and I dithered. Enough so that my husband -- who I would have expected to say, "Don't do this, do you really need more time in front of a screen?" -- said if I thought I'd really enjoy it, I should go get it. Nuff said.

So, months later, here I am, Kinecting and liking it. Hope I can help all you other grown-up ladies and gentlemen out there who are considering expanding your videogaming from Farmville and Bejeweled to something more physical.

"It's for my nephew," the origin story

Have you ever been in a video game store?



They are not made for chicks like me. Chicks who are on the "hen" side of the word chick, that is.

My kind of store has well-lit aisles, products arranged in groups that make sense, and possibly a faint pumped-in scent of lavender or apple pie, whatever research has shown makes chicky-hens want to buy. A lot of thought has gone into merchandising, and I'm not just being sold a throw pillow, I'm being sold a dream of a fully-coordinated living room.


(So much order! No piles of unread New Yorkers all over!)

Video game stores are not designed this way. Especially the ones in my town, which are independent and which, due to their being independent and local, do appeal to me in theory.

In reality, we are talking an instant assault on the nose. Video game stores smell like puberty, Funyun sweat and a soupcon of Mountain Dew burps. No Axe undertones -- these guys don't care enough about what girls think to try that hard, and I'm not sure whether to be grateful for that or not. We are talking lots of merch under glass and behind the counter (my town is small and has its share of tweakers). We are also talking underlit and full of young guys. If they're accompanied by adults, it is by their dads.

We are talking about an environment that is meant for those with Y chromosomes under 30, and which has an atmosphere that attracts enough tweakers to make it necessary to have some overly-obvious security. I didn't really realize this the first time I went in, in my work clothes and heels, to check out what it would be like to buy a game there.

Although the deals were red hot on games, the atmosphere was not for me. I bought "Guitar Hero: World Tour" for seven bucks (!!) and told the clerk it was for "my nephew" before checking out. Yes, I lied. I went to the other game store to see if it was any different (aka better), but it was basically exactly the same thing. To boot, both stores had a paucity of Kinect titles.

I realized that although women my age are basically a core gaming market, we are not its target, and we probably won't be getting clean, light and attractive stores anytime soon, especially since we're already buying. Teen boys are the ones who need to be hooked at this point, whether to a system or the style of sitting down with a controller in front of a TV instead of through the internet or however they're playing.


I get the feeling this is the kind of woman gamer considered acceptable in the game store environment.

My personal and professional ethos is to shop local, but on video games I'm taking a pass, considering the attempts I've made as my good faith effort. Some stuff you just have to have a certain amount of either rapport with the shopkeepers and their customers or, barring that, privacy to buy. I will let these particular fiefdoms have it their way.



I can't help thinking that eventually someone will see that there is money to be made in creating a game store for people that replicates a Target-like environment, or even something more boutique. I'd also be interested to know of other women's experiences going to game stores.