Bad sales numbers in Japan, EA complaining about not enough hardware for christmas and other problems make me think the xbox 360 is off for a hard time until PS3 launch and maybe more after that (if Sony doesnt f*ck up their launch):
1. Missing HD/DVD drive. What were they thinking? Hyping the HDTV era and not including a player to show HDTV quality movies. Microsoft supports the HD/DVD format and the x360 could have helped to push the format. Blu-Ray gets a 100+ million blue ray users base 'for free' which make the format a sure winner. And x360 users will probably see some multi-disk games while PS3 owners will not.
2. Worldwide launch. What a really bad idea. The US gets not enough units, which usually isnt good for a launch. And japan has a 100k units left because the launch missed the only system seller title for japan - DOA4.
3. Retard Pack. I dont think it is THAT bad, sure helped MS to get more money out of accessories. But now developers cant rely on HD being available, which was hyped as a necessity for some of the games in the xbox era.
4. Releasing an unfinished PDZ. What could have been a killer app turned out to be mediocre 85% game not worthy of Rare's name. Halo pushed the xbox launch which resulted in about 2x as many units sold in the first day. PDZ didnt even make #1 in sales and will probably sell about 20% of what Halo did.
5. Overestimating the power of higher defined graphics. PGR3, the showcase for HDTV quality gaming just didnt sell very well although it plays on most kiosks. Comments I heard were mostly "It looks really nice, but I wont buy a new console for that". Same games with higher resolution (textures) is what most of the launch games have to offer, no new concepts, great physics or innovative gameplay elements.
6. Launching first. Sure the x360 wont turn out to be a dreamcast, but it shares the same problem. People are waiting for PS3, which probably even has better graphics. Last gen MS relied on the advanced tech (better sound, graphics, HD, live) to get their customers. This time they have to build their userbase on the reputation they got last gen (but much of that reputation still was build on the superior specs).
7. Bad news about faulty hardware again. Why cant the QA department check if units works correctly when changing the orientation of the console while playing. Sure you must be stupid to do that, but I am pretty sure PS3 and Rev wont scratch your disks when doing so. It is not really the problem damage done to the disks but damage done to japanese launch.
Most of that only to get a couple of millions units out before Sony enters the market. I am not sure if this was just a (bad) business decision or if it was pure panic not to launch at the same time as the PS3 does.
Last gen I did a topic "xbox, what went wrong, what went right", but honestly this time I cant find much that went right. Sure the 3rd party support Microsoft gathered through the xbox's lifetime is nice and the UK launch really went great, but both of that is build on xbox 1 success.
I know, many of you enjoy their hardware and the games available, and I know I cant (and dont want) to spoil it for you. I am sure the xbox will survive a whole console cycle and will get a good amount great games. But IMHO it will again fail to take much of Sonys market share and probably not even double xbox 1 HW sales as I had formerly expected. And if the xbox 360 doesnt bring MS closer to leadership I expect it to be financial failure again and probably their last console.
1. Missing HD/DVD drive. What were they thinking? Hyping the HDTV era and not including a player to show HDTV quality movies. Microsoft supports the HD/DVD format and the x360 could have helped to push the format. Blu-Ray gets a 100+ million blue ray users base 'for free' which make the format a sure winner. And x360 users will probably see some multi-disk games while PS3 owners will not.
2. Worldwide launch. What a really bad idea. The US gets not enough units, which usually isnt good for a launch. And japan has a 100k units left because the launch missed the only system seller title for japan - DOA4.
3. Retard Pack. I dont think it is THAT bad, sure helped MS to get more money out of accessories. But now developers cant rely on HD being available, which was hyped as a necessity for some of the games in the xbox era.
4. Releasing an unfinished PDZ. What could have been a killer app turned out to be mediocre 85% game not worthy of Rare's name. Halo pushed the xbox launch which resulted in about 2x as many units sold in the first day. PDZ didnt even make #1 in sales and will probably sell about 20% of what Halo did.
5. Overestimating the power of higher defined graphics. PGR3, the showcase for HDTV quality gaming just didnt sell very well although it plays on most kiosks. Comments I heard were mostly "It looks really nice, but I wont buy a new console for that". Same games with higher resolution (textures) is what most of the launch games have to offer, no new concepts, great physics or innovative gameplay elements.
6. Launching first. Sure the x360 wont turn out to be a dreamcast, but it shares the same problem. People are waiting for PS3, which probably even has better graphics. Last gen MS relied on the advanced tech (better sound, graphics, HD, live) to get their customers. This time they have to build their userbase on the reputation they got last gen (but much of that reputation still was build on the superior specs).
7. Bad news about faulty hardware again. Why cant the QA department check if units works correctly when changing the orientation of the console while playing. Sure you must be stupid to do that, but I am pretty sure PS3 and Rev wont scratch your disks when doing so. It is not really the problem damage done to the disks but damage done to japanese launch.
Most of that only to get a couple of millions units out before Sony enters the market. I am not sure if this was just a (bad) business decision or if it was pure panic not to launch at the same time as the PS3 does.
Last gen I did a topic "xbox, what went wrong, what went right", but honestly this time I cant find much that went right. Sure the 3rd party support Microsoft gathered through the xbox's lifetime is nice and the UK launch really went great, but both of that is build on xbox 1 success.
I know, many of you enjoy their hardware and the games available, and I know I cant (and dont want) to spoil it for you. I am sure the xbox will survive a whole console cycle and will get a good amount great games. But IMHO it will again fail to take much of Sonys market share and probably not even double xbox 1 HW sales as I had formerly expected. And if the xbox 360 doesnt bring MS closer to leadership I expect it to be financial failure again and probably their last console.
