AndreVrignaud
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Amazon steals Microsoft's Director of Game Platform Strategy for some reason
Amazon's gaming related job postings are starting to bear exotic fruit having just nabbed Microsoft's Director of Game Platform Strategy, Andre Vrignaud. Vrignaud started with Microsoft in 2002 as Director of Xbox Live Platform Strategy and more recently helped manage Microsoft's overall gaming platform strategy with a hand in figuring out how to roll out Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7. Obviously, this leads to speculation that Amazon is looking to expand further into digital games as it's already done with music, video, and digital books. And with Amazon working on non-Kindle hardware with ambitions for dual-screen readers, well, we'd say the question isn't what, but when?
Microsoft doesn't think Sony can stick to single PS3 SKU
Since Microsoft apparently didn't suffer enough indignity with the whole J Allard-in-dreads happenings -- we were sure our caption contest sealed the deal -- another Xbox exec has gone on record making predictions on Sony hardware, unfortunately without similarly high stakes. Xbox director of technical strategy Andre Vrignaud is betting a steak dinner with the staff of Level Up that Sony's going to hit the market with a $399 PS3 SKU by Black Friday 2007. His thinking is that Sony won't want to stick with a $599 80GB PS3 as its sole offering, and therefore will drop the 80 gigger to $499 and supplement it with a stripped down $399 40GB PS3 that skips out on WiFi, a memory card reader and backward compatibility. Of course, Sony's not talking much about SKUs ever since its total PR disaster on the 60GB price cut during E3, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company is ready to take a page out of Microsoft's book and go all PS3 "Core" on us.[Via GamesIndustry.biz]
Microsoft makes bet: Sony will unveil $399 PS3 this year
It wasn't too long ago when a Microsoft executive was trash-talking Sony. Nay, going so far as to make a bet against their rival gaming manufacturer. Case in point: J. Allard made predicted that Sony's PSP would downright flop. He was wrong, and to honor a bet with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, he donned dreads and updated his Microsoft company profile page, admitting "N'Gai had it right," and that the PSP was not a failure.Looks like Microsoft is up to the same antics again. This time, Xbox director of technical strategy and attack blogger Andre "Ozymandias" Vrignaud, is the one to take a bet with N'Gai. He states that "My prediction is that you're going to see the creation of a new, low-end SKU this holiday. It'll likely remove integrated WiFi, memory card reader, and most controversially, all backward compatibility. (Remember, there's still some back-compat hardware in even the new "software only" back compat SKUs; removing the remaining CPU is a significant cost savings.) You'll see a new WiFi dongle made available. And finally, this low-end SKU will likely come with a smaller 40 GB hard drive. The low-end price will be set at $399, with the higher-end 80 GB SKU dropping to $499."An interesting concept, to say the least. Ozymandias expects it to arrive by Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year in the US. N'Gai accepted Microsoft's bet ... only this time, the loser will have to buy a steak dinner instead of alter their hair styles (which will simply not be as fun to write about).[Thanks, Copa!]
