With commercials skippable on TV and ads blockable on the internet, it can be hard to break through to tech-loaded consumers these days. That's why it can often take some...unusual steps in order to get people's attention.
Case in point this morning would be Pizza Hut's new app on Xbox Live. As you can see above, it lets gamers assemble their own pizza and have it delivered to their house without ever putting down their controller.
With this announcement comes about eight paragraphs of PR back slapping on what a great idea this is and how Pizza Hut and Xbox are so privileged and honored to be working together on something like this.
On first glance, the app is pretty cool, at least visually and conceptually. There's something quite futuristic about using a motion controlled Kinect to wave your hands around and assemble a virtual pizza, only to have the real thing delivered a short while later.
Of course, in practice, it's hard to consider it a step up from more traditional ways of ordering pizza, either via talking on the phone with an actual human or using a phone app. Both of these are actually more convenient than ordering on Xbox Live when you're playing a game.
Why? Well, seeing as the app runs from the dashboard, you'll have to quit whatever you're doing on the system, whether it's playing a game or watching
It would be far easier to simply pause, pull out your phone and use a similar app to order. Or god forbid, call them.
This is the problem with new advancements using systems like XBL or the Kinect. They have to be more than "cool" in theory, they have to actually be the best way to do something. It's why despite it being a cool concept, the Kinect is far from the best way to play most video games, and so it hasn't quite revolutionized gaming like it promised it would. The same goes for pizza ordering in this case. That said, I won't say it's impossible to imagine it could be a very influential force in the future.
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