King Marketing

AJ Kandy
Creative Director

AJ brings over 17 years' experience to KMA+C.

Previously in charge of Branding, Interactive and Creative at telecom software maker Interstar Technologies, AJ also served as Art Director at magazine publisher EMG Media. He's also worked on projects for Power Corporation, Air Canada, Merck Frosst and BCE Teleglobe.

AJ is a graduate of Concordia University's Communication Studies program.

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Xune



Well, after being dissed live-on-air by both Soledad and Miles-no-relation-O’Brien, is the Zune long for this world? Especially with the overcomplicated Zune Marketplace?

Even though the Zune project was headed up by XBox wunderkind J Allard, I can’t help but think they were focusing less on innovation and more on undermining Apple’s business model.

Here’s my design thoughts:

  • For a device that plays video in a widescreen, as opposed to 4:3 format, it doesn’t really look easy to hold, as it seems biased towards holding it at the dial end. I can imagine lots of accidentally pressed buttons, or slipping out of fingers, or fingerprints getting on the screen end.
  • Brown??
  • It looks too much like a been-there-done-that iPod knockoff. Even those up-and-coming brands like Coby have much more style.

Here’s my branding thoughts:

  • Microsoft is leading the next-generation console space at the moment with XBox 360. Why not leverage that mindspace?
  • In doing so, why not leverage the XBox 360’s branding and design characteristics?
  • Is the competitor really Apple, the 800-lb gorilla of mp3 players and downloads — or Sony?
  • Sony’s edging up on Microsoft in the do-everything portable device space owned by their Windows Mobile market with a lot more style and cool. Witness the success of the PSP (games, movies, music, wifi) and the creeping success of the oddly identical Sony Mylo (Sidekick-style text chat, wifi, Skype audio, plus music and movies).

So here’s my reimagined Zune, if it came from the XBox division, hence, Xune. The graphic (click above for larger version) is a mash-up of an iPod Nano touch wheel, XBox controller buttons and the body is mostly a Sony Mylo. This is:

  • Primarily a gaming device - carrying the brand of XBox to the pocket - like PSP, it could be a very ‘lite’ version of the original XBox, maybe based on a customized variant of Windows Mobile
  • Following that thought, this would be a great way to carry the XBox Live Network with you in your pocket. Have a minigame that connects to a larger massively multiplayer game online, for instance.
  • Secondarily a music and media device - putting Windows Media Center in your pocket - but following open standards as well as their own PlaysForSure DRM model.
  • Easy to hold in both hands for watching movies, small enough to be pocketable to listen to music
  • slide-up screen has keyboard for email, chat, lite PDA functions, and text chat in XBox Live
  • WiFi for accessing networks, MSN voice chat, Skype (?) etc. Supports Bluetooth and wired headsets for phone functions, doubles as XBox Live voice chat headset etc.
  • Like PSP with PS2, or GameBoy Advance with GameCube, can serve as a special controller for XBox with screen (via cable or Bluetooth?)

November 16, 2006 3:06 AM

Comments

This seems like a good concept for a PSP/DS-killer, or at least challenger… But I doubt it would target the same market that Microsoft is trying to eat into with the Zune…

Even if Microsoft did make the ‘Xune’, and it did become a sucsess — people wouldn’t through out their iPods. People didn’t do so with neither PSP or the Nintendo DS…

And the main reason Microsoft put out the Zune, in my opinion, is to grab a piece of the lucrative ITMS-type download market…

And — Think about it. Do you really believe Microsoft would be able to pull off an MP3-player-gaming-movie-phone-controller-PDA-browser-combination successfully?

wrote Arnor on November 17, 2006 1:10 AM

Yeah, it’s just sort of a what-if. No, knowing how politicized and balkanized Microsoft is, they probably wouldn’t ever release something good and simple. This is really an exercise more in starting with the values of a core brand (xbox) and extending it into that space, seeing how it might have evolved differently. I think it’s really too late for Microsoft to make an entry into the handheld space unless they really made it xbox / windows media center specific, leveraging the “network effect” to make owning both worth more than either alone.

wrote AJ Kandy on November 17, 2006 5:32 PM

I’m pretty clued out on these here tech things, but was it purposely designed to look like a nintendo controller?

wrote Jack Ruttan on November 18, 2006 12:58 AM

at a certain point all handhelds look the same. if there’s going to be innovation in portable gaming it might involve 3D viewscreen goggles and wii-mote style motion sensors…but then you might get hit by traffic, no?

wrote AJ Kandy on November 30, 2006 1:56 AM

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