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Xbox Boss Admits Mistakes, Bashes Nintendo

Posted by simoniker on from the shy-and-retiring-guy dept.

Thanks to C+VG for their interview with Microsoft's Peter Moore about the state of the Xbox, following on from their recent interview with fellow Xbox bigshot Ed Fries. In this piece, Moore talks about early problems for Microsoft's console, saying: "I look back at the first E3 Xbox had and it was an unmitigated disaster. But that was a wake-up call." He also discusses the company's rivalry with Sony, saying: "It's difficult to expect Xbox to challenge PS2 when the starting gun had gone off a year and a half before and it was already on the third lap", before turning on Nintendo: "I think Nintendo is surprised - it's kind of slipped away from them pretty quickly over the last couple of years. I don't think they really anticipated how well we would do in the business."

6 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Hrmmmm.. by HolyCoitus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He's talking about Nintendo struggling, but isn't the Xbox having a battle with Nintendo for second place for worldwide sales? If Nintendo is struggling and lagging behind, and the fight for gaming hardware supremacy is between the Xbox, PC, and PS2, why isn't the Xbox outselling the Gamecube? Last time I heard, wasn't Nintendo slightly ahead of them?

    --
    That's scary.
    1. Re:Hrmmmm.. by burns210 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      and that is not even including the gameboy... o good lord, that thing is selling like mad.

    2. Re:Hrmmmm.. by M3wThr33 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      All of MS's statements are heavily biased.
      Their console:game purchase ratio includes the two-in-one disc you get when you buy it(As if there's any other way), and their definition of worldwide is "USA, Europe and Australia." They also issued one when DOA:XBV was released in Japan and made the XBox outsell the Cube for one week. They compared sales of a GAME to sales of a CONSOLE. That's BS considering at the SAME TIME Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire was out for over 2 months and in that SAME WEEK outsold the entire Japanese annual XBox console sales. How about the one when they recalled the XBox over the spinning disc during ejection? They didn't expect Japanese gamers to be so finicky. Great, insult your customers. . .
      And after seeing their top sellers be Dino Crisis 3 and DOA:XBV, their current strategy is to release more American games to boost sales.

      See, they aren't admitting half their troubles.
      Every press release you have to read, pay attention to the details for real desperate humor.

      And yes, GCN is leading worldwide. So far this year 300,000 PS2s were sold, 144,000 XBoxen and 100,000 GCNs(3:1.5:1). Compare that to 30,000 PS2s, 15,000 Cubes a week and 900 XBoxen a week in Japan(3:2:0.07). The ratio is heavily weighted outside of English-speaking countries.

  2. i think everyone is surprised.... by u-238 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    hell even im surprised... here i am sitting with an xbox, halo and a few other games, not even giving GC an ounce of thought, when previously NES, SNES and N64 to an extent had been my favoirte of all consoles

  3. Re:Peter knows what he is talking about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Yeah! What did Japan ever do for us? Nothing! Well, except invent video games...but that doesn't count because that country obviously sucks for some unspecified-but-nonetheless-surely-legitimate reason.

    Oh! I know! Because the Japanese don't buy the original poster's favorite console. That makes them evil somehow.

  4. Xbox Live mentioned.... by unclethursday · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Moore mentions Xbox Live in Japan. Ironically, because the Xbox has such a poor marketshare in Japan, the Xbox Live tie in ratio is almost 1 XBL to every 3 Xboxes.

    But I find this quote funny:

    Our customer satisfaction levels with Xbox Live are through the roof - they love it.

    I wonder, then, why it is that many of my friends and myself get quite bored of Xbox Live games rather quickly? Hell, an Xbox fansite editor mentioned in one of his own pieces on the site (article here) that his entire Xbox Live usage to date of the article was around 40 hours over 8 months.

    My usage is slightly more than that, but not by much by my esitmates. Probably less than 80 hours since November for me. My Xbox isn't even at my house right now.

    And Moore also seemed to not mention the flatlining of Xbox Live sales since before May....

    Thursdae