The 360's Position in the Next-Gen War

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a great article on the Elite Bastards site looking at the Xbox 360's positioning in the next-gen market. In the first of a three part article series, the author looks at the lessons Microsoft learned from its first hardware outing, and what he feels the company's strategy will be in the near future. From the article: "Clearly my impression of the Xbox 360 is that it is positioned to compete significantly better in the next gen console race than its predecessor. The difference this time around is that although Microsoft will no longer have the decidedly most powerful console, they also won't have the most expensive console, and believe me, they will compete on price. The Xbox 360s media (DVD) and input device (gamepad) are safe choices and the CPU may be merely adequate, but the GPU is quite potent and should go far in keeping Microsoft's box in the same league as Sony's overall despite the disparity in time to market."

Comments

So far, going no better in Japan

[ChrisRijk]

Xbox 360 is going nowhere fast in Japan. Worse than original Xbox actually. Latest weekly sales available (*) show just 1288 units being sold (estimated) - even the Game Cube is still selling more. Of course, there's still the rest of the world, but one of Microsoft's objectives with Xbox 360 was to succeed in Japan. Looks to be a distant dream right now.

(*) See bottom of: http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

Re:So far, going no better in Japan

[jchenx]

Of course the 360 is going nowhere in Japan at the moment! There aren't any RPGs for the platform, for crying out loud. DOA 4 alone isn't going to bring over Japanese gamers.

But there are several Japanese RPGs in development, most notably those by Mistwalker Studios (headed by a former Square-Enix producer). I think the 360 in Japan is really going to depend on the quality of these first games. If they aren't that that good, then yeah, the 360 in Japan is going to continue to flounder. But, if they turn out to be pretty decent, then I would imagine the 360 is going to do better. Also, we still have to see what Square-Enix decides to do with the platform. Somehow I doubt FFXI is going to be the only game released for the 360.

That said, I've looked at the previews for one of the first Japanese RPGs (Enchant Arm), and it doesn't look that hot to me. I'm a big fan of Japanese RPGs (most Squeenix titles, Xenosaga, Disgaea, etc.), so I guess I'm a target audience.

Re:So far, going no better in Japan

[Anonymous Coward]

You're wrong. It is just as dominant, Nintendo realizes this, and will utterly destroy Microsoft in Q4.

Re:My Take

[AuMatar]

Revolution is going to come in around 200.

And I don't remember ANY SNES/Genesis games costing over $60. The vast majority released at $50.

Re:My Take

[American AC in Paris]

What new systems are going to sell below that on launch?

NES: $199 ($353)
SMS: $199 ($340)

SNES: $199 ($280)
Genesis: $249 ($388)

Saturn: $399 ($496)
PS1: $299 ($372)
N64: $199 ($241)

DC: $199 ($230)

PS2: $299 ($332)
XBox: $299 ($324)
GC: $199 ($299)

First number is launch price, second is launch price adjusted for inflation (USD in 2005). "Winner" in bold.

The XBox 360 comes in at the high end, price-wise; the "real" system launched at $399, which means that only the Sega Saturn was more expensive at launch, in adjusted dollars.

What this does not show is the relative technological leap between console generations. The leap between the current next-gen and their predecessors is much, much narrower than was the leap between earlier iterations. You don't look at side-by-side screenshots of XBox and XBox 360 games and go, "Holy shit, that's amazing!" like you did when you first saw the SNES...

And I seem to remember paying upwards of $75 for Sega Genesis games, I don't think $50 or $60 is unreasonable.

As I recall, $75 games were the exception, not the rule. Remember, too, that Nintendo won that round--and I'm reasonably certain that their games tended to be less expensive than Sega's games.

Re:Who are they kidding?

[bunbuntheminilop]

What are you talking about? The ps2 had a linux kit available so anyone (provided you pay for it...don't start!) could mess around with the Emotion Engine, and people did.

Also, the ps3 will be running, apparently, a version of linux, as server-focused cell applications will be primarily linux based.

Has everyone forgotten?