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360 Sales Slow, Chip Blamed For Issues
Gamasutra has a bevy of information about the XBox 360. Sales seem to be slowing, just as supply issues seem to be resolving. Microsoft has a target for its annoyance regarding those issues. An analyst is blaming German chip manufacturer Infineon Technologies for the slow arrival of 360 units to market. Regardless of past problems, the company is going full speed ahead with more launches. Latin America saw launch on February 2nd, and "The system will launch in Korea on February 24, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore on March 16, Australia and New Zealand on March 23, with a global presence in 30 countries by the end of March."
I for one, am doing just that.
...
I have a GameCube, multiple GameBoys (color, etc), an xBox and
I'm going to wait until PS3 and NR are here and I can see what actual games work on them and what they feel like.
I'll probably get a PS3 this time, but maybe I'll get a NR instead. But the xBox360 severely underwhelmed me. Maybe if I had an HDTV right now I might be more into it, but from my perspective it's the Games that matter, not the console itself.
The reason I bought Sims 2 for the xBox was the graphics were better than the GameCube version. I'm still pretty unimpressed with the xBox, and moreso the xBox360.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There are no real killer titles (and a lot of ports); and
You still can't buy the damn thing. Nowhere that I've seen, anyway. It's 'Out of stock' notices all round where I live...
You must think in Russian.
...or rather, blame the games. Want something to pin slow console sales on? How about the fact that Xbox360 still doesn't have a killer title! Perfect Dark Zero was a decent enough game, but by most accounts it fell short of being the must-have title that would drive sales of the hardware. The Xbox had Halo, the Xbox360 has... nothing even close to that in terms of popularity. No wonder they can't sell the hardware, there's no Xbox360-exclusive game that people really, really want.
I am holding out for the Phantom Game Console!
:)(smile)
"Chip"? Is that Ballmer's new nickname? *confused*
The MAIN reason why people don't buy it: it's probably not crackable. Who want a system like that?
Part of the problem here might simpyl be a lack of interest in the next generation platforms. Yes, there's the hard core people who will be out buying the systems early. But I own a PS2 and it plays the games I have just fine and I haven't bought a game for it in a while. Furthermore, because the XBox and the PS2 are still posessing large market shares, publishers are still making games for them.
Right now, what incentive is there to drop $400-500 on a new game system? Are the games that much better? Not really. Yeah the graphics are a bit better but not in the same way that the PS2 graphics were better than the PS1. I saw an XBox 360 at the store the other day and some kid was playing a fighting game. Yeah the graphics were nicer, but it was more or less the same game I would play on my Dreamcast back in the day.
In the end people will move to the new platform because that's where the games will be, but for now there's not a lot of incentive. Most people don't have HDTV's so they don't get much from that. Many people don't even network their game systems from what I've seen. So much of the touted features of the new systems aren't benefitting the majority of people.
Personally I'll probably buy a PS3 shortly after the release of the next GTA title.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_2#Sales_r ecord
PS2 sold 1 million in opening weekend in Japan, and 500,000 on FIRST DAY in USA.
The 360 has been out for almost 3 months and hasn't made a dent in the market. Read the article, the PS2 is outselling 360.
And there are units in stores now, go to a Walmart, Zellers, whatver you have. They have 360s. But guess what, higher res versions of the same games wont get people to spend the big bucks.
We own(ed) a N64, PS2, PSP, GBA, XBOX and others.
:D.
But we have not bought a Xbox 360 yet. The reaons are multiple:
- The Price
The Xbox 360 is significantly more expensive than most other consoles before it. It simply doesn't fall into the "playmoney" category somehow. This makes the barrier of entry too high.
- The Games
I've bought the Xbox almost solely because of multiplayer Halo and because my wife is a big Oddworld fan. No sign of either for the 360. Call of duty looks nice, but nothing to shell out ~$350 for (X360+game).
- The Future
The Nintento Revolution is going to have Bluetooth (non proprietary) controllers, focus on gaming alone and is set to try a "different" angle on gaming. Hopefully it'll have a good Mario game and come thruogh on the hype.
The PS3 will have GT 5 (eventually). That's good enough for me
Either one are worth waiting for to have something to compare the Xbox 360 against.
Just my $.02
Cheers,
Andre
In my opinion, even if there was enough systems, sales would still be fairlys low.
There's a certain base of hardcore gamers out there who just have to have the next best thing. Since the 360 is the only next-gen system out right now, it's selling systems.
Sure, people are preparing for the future, confident that eventually there will be some killer games on the system. But right now, there's really no system seller. People point to the fact that "there's tons of games rated over 8.0 at IGN!" but... an 8.0 game isn't a system seller. It's a game worth playing, but not worth buying a system for. There's plenty of good 8.0 and higher games on the Xbox, PS2 or Gamecube that are comparable at the moment.
This stories title is very misleading, If you read the article it does not say the reason for the slow sales of Xbox 360 is because of lack of demand but quoting right from the article "Needless to say, the main constricting factor for Xbox 360 sales continues to be the poor supply of the console, rather than a lack of consumers to purchase it.". Supply is still an issue, in my area you can not get one, if you go to ebgames.com you are put on a waiting list. If you know how to get one beside paying an absurd amount on ebay let me know. The article even makes comment that supply is still going to be an issue with the additional manufacturing facilities, quoting from the story, "In fact, Wedbush Morgan's note on the sales indicated that it does not believe U.S. supply will exceed 300,000 units per month in the near future, due to the initial worldwide launch and the forthcoming Asian and Australasian launches.".
Wow. There are four posts at 3 or greater, all of them speculating about reasons for slowing XBox 360 sales. The article says: "Needless to say, the main constricting factor for Xbox 360 sales continues to be the poor supply of the console, rather than a lack of consumers to purchase it."
Interestingly, none of the speculators have given any reason to trust them over Gamasutra, Wedbush Morgan, and Simon Carless. Hey, don't let that get in the way of a pointless flame-fest.
"We own(ed) a N64, PS2, PSP, GBA, XBOX and others. But we have not bought a Xbox 360 yet. The reaons are multiple: - The Price The Xbox 360 is significantly more expensive than most other consoles before it. It simply doesn't fall into the "playmoney" category somehow. This makes the barrier of entry too high. - The Games I've bought the Xbox almost solely because of multiplayer Halo and because my wife is a big Oddworld fan. No sign of either for the 360. Call of duty looks nice, but nothing to shell out ~$350 for (X360+game)."
Price? At $300 it is $50 more than the PSP and exactly the same as the Xbox, PS1, and PS2 at launch date.
Games? See how many other consoles are released with *4* titles grabbing 90+/100 ratings at launch. COD2, PD0, Kameo, and PGR3.
People will find any reason to try to bash this system, even make things up.
Speaking as one who does not own a 360, but has field tested it in HD with a friend, I must say that the unit has quite the graphical and raw horsepower punch. I was never much impressed with the original Xbox, but the 360 is a different animal. It competes with a high end gaming PC rig, playing Quake 4 pretty damn well for a $400 toy. COD II is a damn fun game (even if it has had problems with multiplayer in Xbox live). Didn't much care for PDZ though. Not the point.
I don't think the PS3 will be significantly more powerful, particularly given that Cell SPEs are weighted toward SIMD single precision FP, whereas Xenos has three full integer and VMX (Altivec) cores. The 360 is an amazing deal for $400 - when it works. And that's the problem with the unit. It has an abysmal failure rate, even for a 1st gen product. So I'm holding out for a product update from MS and waiting to see how the PS3 will really perform.
But I'm not so dismissive of MS's latest offering. If fact, on raw power alone, I'm pretty damn impressed.