Horror director criticizes Xbox Live original content handling

Horror director criticizes Xbox Live original content handling
James Gunn, a director of Horror movies, has criticized Microsoft for its poor handling of original content on the Xbox Live service. According to Gunn, he was promised absolute freedom to create content for the Horror Goes Comedy series, but soon became subject to conservative content cuts and rejections, leading him to brand Microsoft as "the most dreadful, non-talent friendly company".

"I still love Xbox gaming, but I think their original content plans are DOA, precisely because of situations like the experience I and some of the other directors had on the Horror Goes Comedy series," Gunn wrote on his blog. To emphasize his point, he cites Grand Theft Auto IV and episodes of South Park that are available for Xbox 360.



"Microsoft wouldn't let us get close to the extremity of that material, so I don't know how in the world they planned to create their own successful original content," he explained. "People didn't want to see our shows, which were barely a half-step removed from something you'd see on the Disney Channel. It's a shame. I really think Xbox could have been its own Network, as well as a gaming console, DVR, and way to buy movies. I saw them as the future."

"Because of the small-mindedness of the Microsoft executives, who pre-emptively censored a lot of our scenes for fear of freaking out stockholders, they crushed the potential for something that would have kept them relevant for a long time to come. It seems, instead, the visionaries have landed at other companies," he concluded in his posting.

Written by: James Delahunty @ 27 Apr 2009 13:43
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  • 2 comments
  • inagasake

    Xbox Live sucks for video content anyway. Except for the free stuff they offer. Why would you pay 300-450 M$ points to rent a movie when you can rent a better quality DVD or Blu-Ray at Blockbuster (and copy it too!)? Why subscribe to Netflix streaming (American users only) when you can get the real Netflix (and copy those as well)? Digital distribution sucks and the Video Marketplace DRM makes it even worse. Especially when you can only write to an overpriced small M$ HDD instead of your cheaply priced 1 TB USB external hard drive. It would be awesome if corporations switched to DRM-free digital distribution like they're starting to do with music but I'm skeptical it will ever happen for video and games. So I'd like it if these companies just stuck with physical media for now unless said product is out-of-print and expensive on ebay.

    27.4.2009 14:39 #1

  • Hopium

    my experience with the video marketplace has about the same flavor, netflix streaming is limited to maybe 10 movies you actually heard 9 of which you've seen free on network tv for the last 10 years and the rest of the selection is a bunch of b-movies you'd never considered renewing the subscription for. also i rented a movie once(ONE FSCKING TIME) and the only time it gave me 24 hours to watch it and that is fine until by some gawd awful coincidence time warner goes down for like 6 hours that night and i couldnt watch the movie even though i had completely downloaded it before dinner because i couldnt sign into xbox live even tho i could see the movie on my profile and on my hdd. some of the dumbest shlt ever.

    27.4.2009 21:42 #2

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