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The Industry's Opinion: The 360 Launch
Gamasutra's ever-interesting question of the week queried individuals in the games industry for their opinions on the launch of the Xbox 360. There were opinions from both sides of the issue, with folks in between as well. From the article: "In my opinion, Microsoft did a superb job of establishing Xbox 360 as the premier next-gen gaming platform. However, it suffered a huge setback when it failed to get enough machines to the market for the Christmas holiday. While coordinating a console launch across multiple continents is truly a massive undertaking, a company as massive as Microsoft has no excuse for being so grossly unprepared. -Coray Seifert, Large Animal Games"
Microsoft is a dying breed, they tend to mess up more and more, just wait for Vista.
When expecting to find intelligence in a person, do not look at their age but instead look at their IQ and maturity firs
No I think emptying stock from store shelves long before christmas is a good thing. Especially if you can fill them back up before Xmas morn. Even if it was carefully calculated to give the appearance of a shortage it was well played.
The Only thing I can fault them for is not covering ALL pre-Orders.
My Local WalMart said they had 20 that lasted the for about an hour that first Night.
Everybody I've talked to (if they had no power supply issue and most of them) wanted to get off the phone and get back to the console.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
??. Microsoft did get the xbox to market 6 months before PS3 is even slated to appear, and the Revolution to be debuted. This is a company that faces the realities of production vs time, and consequently it is excusable. There's a price to pay for launching the same type of technology 6 months ahead of your competitors; saying it's inexcusable is at best childish and at worst ignorant. Mind you, Microsoft is launching the console Worldwide!
Even with the shortages, I'm impressed.
Look at amazon.com:
Availability: This item is currently not available.
("used" xbox 360 are for USD 900!)
look at amazon.de:
Gewöhnlich versandfertig bei Amazon in 2 bis 4 Monaten.
(Ready to ship in 2 to 4 months)
("used" xbox 360 are for 600++ Euro)
Today I heard a conversation like this:
Father: Do you have any xbox 360?
Salesperson: No, and we don't expect any large shipments until february or march.
Son (14years): In spring there will be the the PS3. It's far superior to the xbox. If I have to wait, I take the PS3 in 2006.
Salesperson: There is no release date for the PS3 in Germany.
Son: I want the PS3
MS created a hype around the xbox 360. But in my opinion the hype backfired.
People wanted to buy the xbox, no xbox available people buy other console.
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Microsoft did a superb job of establishing Xbox 360 as the premier next-gen gaming platform.
Really? He's saying that it is now clear that neither PS3 nor Revolution will possibly be able to challenge Xbox 360 now?
Or is he using "premier" in some marketroid sense that doesn't involve requiring something to actually meet or defeat any competition?
I think the real fun begins next Christmas which is the earliest that I think we'll see the PS3 launch in the U.S.. Shortages and hardware issues are typical of major console launches, so on that note there was nothing unusual about the 360 launch. The thing that sets it apart IMHO is launching in three territories in a relatively short period of time. Kudos to Microsoft for pulling that off.
I think that now Sony has to be careful not to pull a Saturn and push the PS3 out the door before it and key software is ready. Right now, I just don't see how they can get it out along with good games by spring. And missing XMas 2007 in the U.S. would be very bad for them too. Granted, I don't think MS is going to grab the crown from Sony this round, but spotting them not one but two Christmas seasons would not be a good idea.
And let's not forget Nintendo! Since they have chosen not to go bleeding edge on the hardware, they may be able to launch by XMas 2007 as well. An inexpensive Revolution, Xbox 360 with a year's headstart, and the Playstation 3 likely launch should make next Christmas very interesting.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
First there are no great games? Where is the Halo? Where is the Mario? Where is the must have? It is sports and FPSes, and that's about it. I want to play PGR3, and Kameo looks interesting (although opinions on it vary wildly). But past that is is all sports and FPSes (Call of Duty 2 is nice, but it isn't original, it was on PC first). Even a copy of Burnout Revenge or SSX: Tricky or something like that with updated graphics would be nice (Sorry, not an Amped fan). There is no game worth the $470 it would cost me to play it right now (game + system). When I bought an X-Box (a few months after the launch) there was Halo, Jet Set Radio Future (AMAZING game), and a few others.
Second is launch problems. Like people in the article said, a world-wide launch is nice, but only if it works. They only had 400k systems for the US and that is a joke. This part was a DISASTER. Why not launch in the US and Japan only (Europe and other countries later)? Why not launch in the US only and then other countries? You don't want to be over stocked, but you don't want this problem of no-one able to buy your system for the next 2 months. Add in the crashing issues (very small, but got tons of press and thus bad) and things are not good.
Core System is by far the biggest mistake of the launch. "Our console is $300!" is not a good message when the $300 version is crippled. The built-in HDD was easily one of the best things of the original XBox. It could be used for caching and such (helps kill load times). It made saving fast (as opposed to the sometimes glacial pace of memory cards). Dropping it was a HUGE mistake. And in the future you will either put games on the HDD or on many DVDs (see next point). So selling without it is a mistake. I think the whole "Core System" thing was just terribly confusing to the public (when something like 20% of people see "In HD where available" at the bottom of a TV show and think they are watching HD on their old 10 year old TV, you can't expect them to get "Core" vs "Full"). And why does a 20 gig HDD cost $100? That's insane. Make the drive a 3.5" instead of 2.5" and sell us 60 gigs for that $100 and still make a nice profit.
HD? Buy our system and you can play games in HD. All you need is a $1500 TV. Yeah, RIGHT. Most games that are out now are not that much better looking than a XBox or 'Cube when you are on an SDTV. The storage issues worries me (I think they will need to move to multi-disk games VERY soon because of all the high-rez content. And anyways, can you really tell me that Resident Evil 4 on the 'Cube doesn't look good enough? What about Gran Turismo 4? Every previous console generation has brought massively improved graphics. 2600->NES was a huge jump. NES->SNES was too. SNES->PS bought us into 3D. PS->PS2 brought higher poly counts so people weren't blocks anymore. PS2->360 brings us... slightly less jaggies. This jump is the first time the graphics are not obviously improved by a large amount. Maybe things will look better in later titles (they always do) but it's not there now (maybe on HDTV, but that is not many people).
I'll probably buy one later, but I don't think they did a very good job with the launch. The massive shortages were easily the biggest problem. Why didn't they wait until December 14th or something like that so they'd have an extra 2 weeks of production to sell? I know they talked about almost holding the launch, and I think they would have been better off if they did (especially in the games arena when they could have had DOA 4 and other big titles).
Now they did some things right, don't get me wrong. The aesthetics of the unit are better, the controller is better, the XBox Live Arcade is ingenious (I can't wait to play Smash TV and such, but I'm not pay $410 for Smash TV). I wish they would open it up (sell a little dev-kit for $50 or $100 that you do on your PC and upload things to your 360 and you can enter competitions and such. Program it in some managed language l
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
How is the availibility in other areas? Particularly the Core System.
Where I live (Germany) there doesnt seem to be that much of a shortage.
I saw a few Core systems today in my local electronics store.
Interesting point. I overlooked it, and I agree... they definately did not compensate their pricing based on the basic concept of supply/demand.
Well, M$ wanted to create artificial shortage to create big "sell out" buzz and watch their stock tick up a couple of notches. Ok. However, they just alientated a HUGE segment of the market, who now have no choice but to buy thier loved one SOMETHING ELSE for a XMAS gift. NOW, if I were buying something for a gamer (we are assuming the recipient is a non PC gamer, since the first choice was xbox 360) and couldn't get the 360, am I just going to stiff that person out of a gift cause I couldn't be fortunate enough to get my hands on one? NOPE, I'll just buy him the next best thing, which is hmmmm....THE PSP!! WOW!! M$ JUST FORCES ALL A HUGE CHUNK OF THE MARKET INTO BUYING THEIR COMPETITORS PRODUCT!!! GOOD JOB BILLY!!!
It seems that you have the reading comprehension skills of a todler. You see, the whole point of the post was that M$$$$$$$$$$$$ (gotta give you extra ones since you love em SO much) ACTUALLY MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROFIT. Their marketing fuckup puts their competitor Sony at an extreme advantage now. Go ahead. Reread the post. I'll sit here and wait 20 minutes for you to slowly re-read it to yourself, verbalizing every little sylable.