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Xbox 360 Launch to Face Several Hurdles
JamesO writes "Microsoft's J Allard has said that the Xbox 360 will be released in differing versions over the next five years. "It's something we're not ready to announce yet," he said. "I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all [approach] over the next five-year horizon." Relatedly JamesO writes "Microsoft is saying that anywhere up to 40 games could be released for the Xbox 360 during its launch period, but which of those will make or break the console's launch? Pro-G choose their ten most important Xbox 360 launch games. Not the ten best launch games, but the most important for the success of the Xbox 360."
The whole concept that drives consoles is that they are easy to use. You see the Xbox logo, you know you can play it. This idea has obviously degraded some with the online movement (not everyone will be able to play online), but this is taking it too far. When I buy a game system, there should be no compatibilty question. That's what my PC is for.
The average parent isn't going to know what to pick for their kid, and faced with a choice they might just turn around and pick up a console they know will be able to support any game on the system.
More experienced/older gamers might look at the inferior versions of the system as worthless, and will simply wait until the maxed out system comes down to a reasonable price. A good analogy would be with computers. The average slashdotter isn't going to go buy a celeron notebook (lets go with plain old celeron, when they sucked) when there are vastly superior Pentium M notebooks available. They will wait for the better system's price to come down. Maybe not such a great analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across.
I know that they haven't said much, but I've read between the lines and I can tell you everything you need to know:
"Guys, listen, the XBox 360 that you've all been waiting for . . . well . . . it's really just a PC with a graphics card that will be out of date next week." -- BillG
Evidence:
+ Unified SDK for PC and XBox game programming
+ XBox original is also a PC
+ Say no more, sir, say no more
Oh, and in case you weren't aware, the US gaming market is much larger than that in either Japan or Europe.
CESA industry sales figures for Japanese publishers/manufacturers from last year:
Year - Software / Hardware : Total
2004 - $4.28 billion / $4.03 billion : $8.31 billion
And by region:
Year - Japan/Overseas : Total
2004 - $3.06 billion / $5.16 billion : $8.22 billion
The total North American video game market had $9.9 billion in sales over the same period.
Now, you can say that $9.9 billion in sales is more than three times $3.06 billion, but a couple things:
a) $3.06 billion is still no small chunk of change
b) That's in a country with half the population and about 1/20 the land mass (meaning distribution and marketing is much, much cheaper)
c) That's just one country, vs. Canada/US/Mexico for North American market numbers
d) $5 billion worth of Japanese software/hardware was sold overseas, meaning a large chunk of that North American market number is made up of Japanese games and systems
e) The total Japanese game industry is nearly the same size as the North American game industry in total dollar sales (in 2003, it was actually larger).
For example, the Saturn, a console made by a Japanese company, did pretty well in Japan yet tanked everywhere else. The end result of that was creating a situation where Sega ran out of money to compete.
And the same thing would have happened to Microsoft - with a successful console in the US and Europe but not Japan - if they did not have billions of dollars from their operating system business to rely on. They have lost billions on the Xbox. Part of the reason for that is approximately 33% of the sales they envisioned never materialized, because the system tanked so hard in Japan. They literally have only two of the three markets they thought they would.
I think you're underestimating the importance of Japan to the overall video game market. No system can be a financial success these days without being successful in Japan, in addition to the other markets. Japan is a huge cash cow - it is a much more profitable market than either the US or Europe, which are both nightmares of marketing and distribution for various reasons (different languages, long distances, political borders, cultures, etc.).