Ch. 7 - Business Marketing

"Business Marketing is the marketing of goods and services to individuals and organizations for purposes other than personal consumption." Microsoft took the gaming experience to a whole new level. By using the internet Microsoft made a world where gamers of the same platform can interact via microphones and cameras. While playing "online" you can also interact with your foes and or allies depending on the game your playing. Strategic alliance is a cooperative agreement between business firms. Microsoft have plenty of strategic alliances. For example they have strategic alliances with the creators of the Halo and Gears of War saga. Halo and Gears of War are games exclusively for the Xbox 360. This gives Xbox a big advantage over Sony's Playstation 3 because not only are these games are exclusively for the Xbox 360 but they are also competitive games. Competitive gamers tend to buy more and more quantities then casual gamers. I myself am a competitive player and i have 3 copies of the Halo game.

Ch 8- Segmenting and Targeting Markets

“Marketers use segmentation bases, or variables, which are characteristics of individuals, groups, or organizations, to divide a total market into segments.” When it comes to Geographic segmentation Microsoft Focuses more on the United States then in Japan. The reason for this is that the Japanese people are loyal to their beloved Sony PlayStation 3. They are loyal to Sony because, the PlayStation 3 has many role playing games that are specifically for the PlayStation 3. The Japanese gamers love role playing games that is why Microsoft released Tales of Vesperia, which was a role playing game made for the Xbox 360 to try to win over the Japanese. When it comes to demographic segmentation, age, gender and income are taken into consideration. Age is used on the games created for the Xbox. For example most first person shooter games are rated M for mature which means that u have to be 17+ to even buy the games in store. Other games are labeled E for everyone, T for teen, and E+10 for everybody over 10 years old. Gender comes in play when new applications are added to the Xbox 360 dashboard. Applications like Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Zune, etc are all targeted at the females who live with the male gamers.