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Kevin Bachus Talks Next-Gen Console Wars

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the finally-a-real-fight dept.

conq writes "In a piece on BusinessWeek, former Microsoft exex Kevin Bachus, who was part of the team who pitched the XBox to Bill Gates gives his opinion on the Microsoft/Sony gaming war: '...I believe that regardless of who comes out on top this time, the margin will be the closest it's been since the heady days of Nintendo and Sega. And as always, the winners will be the consumers and the publishers.'"

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Hardware vs Software by Necoras · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As the PSP and various other high end systems have proven, it really doesn't matter what kind of hardware you have in your box if your games don't live up to it. I rather hope that next gen games will focus more on being fun to play, and more importantly fun to replay, than just fun to look at. I'm not too optimistic on the MS and Sony front as I've seen the crap titles that launched with the 360 and Sony's too bogged down with hardware problems to worry about listening to users. The Revolution looks promising in it's own way, but if it can't pick up a decent marketshare then all of the gimmiks in the world won't save it. We can only hope that the best games will come out on top, and not the best hardware tech.

  2. War? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Uh, there is no 'war' between Sony and Microsoft.

    Microsoft is nothing more than a company that came in last place in the current gen console race behind Nintendo. And Microsoft's second entry into the console market is doing roughly two to three times WORSE than the first Xbox.

    The 360 is:

    1) Completely dead in Japan
    2) Almost dead in Europe
    3) Sold a pathetic 190k consoles in March in the US - five months into its life and it is getting outsold by the six year old Sony PS2

    And there are 360 sitting unsold on store shelves in every major US retailer for over a month now. The 360 is on track to sell no more than three million units this year. That's one dead console.

    The 360 is a marketplace failure. No one outside of the most diehard of Dreamcast and Xbox fans gives a damn about the system. Notice the major switch to pushing Vista gaming recently by Microsoft... They see the writing on the wall for the Xbox project.

    The next gen race is going to be brutal between Sony and Nintendo - with Nintendo standing a good chance of actually outselling Sony in Japan this upcoming console cycle and selling probably around N64 levels in the US and Europe. Microsoft is no longer relevant to the console market.

    1. Re:War? by MayonakaHa · · Score: 5, Informative
      And there are 360 sitting unsold on store shelves in every major US retailer for over a month now.

      Someone send those unsold consoles down here to San Antonio so we can get all the customers off our backs! Every major and minor retailer here hasn't been able to keep them in stock more than a day. We got 18 of them the other day and sold out within 4 hours. I'm wondering if that 190K number is because the areas that need more consoles don't have them and the ones that have them in abundance have already sold to all the customers that wanted them.

  3. Industry Has-Been Shoots Mouth Off: Film at Eleven by Bieeanda · · Score: 4, Insightful

    After jumping ship from Microsoft to Infinium, like a dot-bomb era flea, Bacchus' opinions are worth next to nothing in my opinion. The man fucked the dog for the sake of a ridiculously obvious scam that's resulted in nothing but ridicule, frivolous lawsuits and vaporware; anything he has to say about the industry he clearly has no understanding of is a desperate attempt to rebuild his annihilated credibility.