Microsoft revealed that no one wanted to buy those custom 360 faceplates they were selling back when the console launched. Go figure.
Remember how, back when the Xbox 360 launched, you could buy and attach custom faceplates to the console? It’s OK if you don’t, since nobody bought the darn things, which is one of the reasons that Microsoft phased them out of the design for the new 360 Slim redesign.
Albert Penello, global marketer for Microsoft, recently revealed that the Xbox 360’s range of custom faceplates (available through both Microsoft and third party venders) weren’t nearly as popular as they were initially expected to be. This isn’t surprising, since I seem to remember faceplates selling for up to $30 here in the States and not being terribly impressed at the design options that were available.
“The idea wasn’t bad,” Penello explained to Official Xbox Magazine. “People used to put faceplates on their cell phones. Rewind five years, faceplates were what everybody wanted to do. “It turned out nobody bought it. So [we stopped] making them. We killed that one pretty quickly.”
I was always disappointed that there was no option to create a custom design for a faceplate at a reasonable price. Unsurprisingly, the faceplates are available for rock-bottom prices these days.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
Published: Dec 17, 2010 11:45 pm