On a typical visit last month, Blackley traveled from Los Angeles to the Brisbane, California, headquarters of IGN.com, a popular site for game players. In the office, an electric car racetrack is at the center and the dress code seems to favor jeans, sneakers and creative facial hair. He brought with him an early version of Wreckless, an Xbox game due in February. But first he settled into a 45-minute conversation with IGN's editors.
Referring to Microsoft as "they," instead of "we," Blackley discussed the different sizes of Xbox controllers for Japan and North America, made some guesses about Sony's plans for online games and apologized for E3. "We're going to screw up," Blackley told them. "But we still have better games."
Vincent Lopez, editor in chief of IGN's Xbox site, said he had never before heard a game company admit its mistakes. Microsoft's problem, he said, was that it showed the wrong games at E3. But he said recent demonstrations of fighting games like Dead or Alive 3 and car-chase games like Wreckless, which had IGN editors cooing, suggested that Microsoft might prove to be a contender.
"There's disgusting amounts of detail," he said. "I didn't think the Xbox could do that."
By the end of the holiday season, Microsoft expects to have shipped 1 million to 1.5 million Xboxes. It is counting on sales clerks to tell game players the Xbox is worth waiting for.
On a recent afternoon in San Francisco, Microsoft assembled 15 clerks from local electronics stores at a dance club to rally the troops. Young women in neon green wigs greeted them with Xbox dog tags and stickers. Scot Travers, a Microsoft sales trainer wearing Xbox sneakers, prowled the stage, throwing out phrases like "Xbox was designed by gamers for gamers."
Many sales clerks, baby-faced teenagers in T-shirts and jeans who sell video games because they love them, had come in on their day off. They stared glassy-eyed as Travers made his pitch. After 40 minutes, they got their reward: a chance to play a half-dozen games set up in the club. Soon they were cheering in front of machines, engaged in gun battles and car races.
Afterward, Shannon Williams, a salesman at Babbage's, repeatedly called the Xbox "cool," praising its graphics as "a whole lot better" than the competition's.
But another salesman said he had decided not to buy an Xbox. The salesman, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing his job, said the demonstration kiosk in his store had showed "hiccups." He had sold only one-quarter of his Xbox pre-orders after five days, and he wondered if Microsoft would keep making the Xbox if it kept losing money. "If it survives, if it does well, if it looks like they're not going to abandon it, and if there are a lot of cool games, then I'll buy it," he said.
Microsoft cannot wait that long.
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