Slashdot Mirror
One Year of Xbox 360
Gaming Nexus has up an article marking (kinda) the one-year anniversary of the 360's launch. Author Charles Husemann touches on the important moments in the console's first year on the market, discusses what Microsoft has done right, and talks about where the console is probably going in the future. From the article: "Obviously digital content such as TV and movies are going to be a big deal (assuming Microsoft can get those servers running smoothly and release bigger hard drives). I know I can stream it from my PC but I'd love to have Major Nelsons' podcast automatically downloaded to my 360 every week. I'd also like to see Microsoft resist the temptation to cram a browser into the system as I know they are going to get pressure to do so with the Wii and the PS3 having that built in. Instead I'd love to have a simple, easy to use RSS reader that can stream headlines along the bottom of the screen when I'm in the dashboard."
NPD has the 360 at 2.7 million in the US as the end of October.
Media Create has the 360 at 170k in Japan by the same time.
Things don't look very good in Europe, though not as bad as Japan - the total shipments to all of Europe most likely put the 360 in the 1.2 million range.
Throw in a handful from various minor territories.
Going into the November the 360 has sold about 6 million shipped and 4.5 sold million worldwide.
That's worse than the first Xbox. And even worse than the Dreamcast's first year.
Backwards compatibility
Microsoft tried to downplay BC and then at the last minute flip flopped and tried to implement a halfassed way of manually retrofitting small batches of games. If they had just kept their mouths shut and stuck to the "We don't feel BC is something gamers want" mantra they wouldn't have this year long bitchfest about BC. 360 owners would have gotten over and and moved on.
Hardware defects
Instead of being upfront about the insanely high defect rate for the 360, Microsoft tried to BS 360 owners about "within industry standards for defect rates" when there were people all over the net who had gone through 3,4,5,6,7 360s. They generated massive ill will amongst 360 owners and there are still many former Xbox owners not willing to buy 360s because of all the horror stories.
Developer Support
Going into what should have been its big holiday sales months, Microsoft only has Gears of War. Not exactly a game that is causing people outside the usual Xbox fanbase to want a 360. And Gears is no match for Halo/2 in single or online play.
10 Megs of EDRAM
Despite all the talk of how money means nothing to Microsoft, they skimped on the graphics hardware in the 360 and developers have been paying the price. We are now learning that more games besides PGR3 are being forced to run at less than 720p so they can avoid having to write tile renderers to fit inside the 360's EDRAM.
Charge for online play
Both Nintendo and Sony are offering free online play for their systems. The one company that should be able to afford to let its gamers play games for free isn't.
Peripherals
One word: overpriced
Harddrive
There is no reason Microsoft is forcing 360 owners to be able to have nothing better than a 20gig drive. Microsoft should let 360 owners upgrade their harddrive to any size they want.
Microsoft has pretty much squandered their one year head start. The press is completely focused on the Wii and PS3 now. Even stores are pushing the 360 displays off to the side to make room for the new Wii and PS3 kiosks or displays.