I can give you examples of anime and video games that do poorly in Japan but do well here... due to differences in culture.
Metal Gear Solid was not so hot in Japan, such that Metal Gear Solid 2 was released in the US FIRST. Likewise the anime Escaflowne did poorly in Japan but well here in the US.
The Japanese may be racist, but so are Americans, what with their preferences for Detroit steel and stuff. Whatever. Everyone is subtly, grossly, or contextually racist, but that's not enough to kill a product. If the XBox 360 had compelling games, then it will succeed DESPITE Japanese racism.
I actually don't think that an Nintendo XBox 360 launched with Project: Gotham Racer, Need For Speed, Call of Duty, Kameo, Criminal Intent, or Gun would do well. Nintendo would, I think, launch with at least Mario/Link/Samus product, probably a Pokemon title, three puzzle titles, a voice activated dating sim, some kind of wacky Para Para game, and probably a fly fishing game, and that would be a big hit.
Keep track of this, in a year. We'll see what Nintendo launches with, because this is what kind of games they launched the DS with.
Right. That explains why the Japanese hate the iPod and are buying Sony Walkmen.. wait, they don't hate the iPod.
Or why they hate McDonalds... wait, they don't hate McDonalds.
Or why they hate the US... no wait, they don't hate the US.
Call it for what it is, Microsoft mis-stepped. They didn't have any compelling games for the Japanese market. Japanese games like Katmari Damacy, DDR, Lumines, DOA, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.
You've proved nothing because Nintendo or Sony DIDN'T release a console with the same launch titles and do better. When the DS was launched, there was the Mario games, there was the quirking date-sim games, there was the Meteos puzzle game, etc. When the PSP was launched there was the Metal Gear Acid rpg game, there was the Lumines puzzle game, etc. Where are the puzzle games for XBox 360? Where are the dating sim games for the XBox 360? Where are the RPGs for the XBox 360?
Microsoft takes a shotgun approach, rather than an evolution/growth approach. Here are Microsoft's strategies in the past several years:
Microsoft UltimateTV settop box hardware (but not offered with XBox, XBox 360, or Media Center) Microsoft Media Center Edition coupled with a PC (but not with XBox, XBox 360, or UltimateTV service) Microsoft XBox PC in every living room (but with no Media Center functionality, no PVR functionality) Microsoft XBox 360 in every living room (but with no Media Center functionality, no PVR functionality)
In the past several years Microsoft has undertaken four different ways to get into the living room without actually coordinating or growing each attempt to support the other attempts. Each time they decided to "forget" the previous attempt. It took intrepid users to hack MCE functionality into the XBox!
It boils down to design. If you're browsing channels, you might as well have a dedicated 'browse/scan/surf' function. If you're skipping through stations, then all you need to do is Up/Down, assuming volume is Left/Right. Are you asking for a keypad so you can go "014->enter", "022->enter", "036->enter"? You don't see iPods with number pads do you? People have been successfully navigating thousands, tens of thousands, of songs on iPods with only five buttons and a scroll wheel for years now.
Actually, do a Google for HP Tunes. There was at least one company (guess!) that produced a WMCE PC that played... iTMS files on their PC! Wow! Even if it is using Quicktime in the background, isn't that what you want?
Of course Gates doesn't even let WMP for Mac play protected WMA/WMV, so small chance the iPod would as well.
Apple could always conceivably build in a wireless mouse, ala the Revolution controller, to make menu navigation and guide navigation even FASTER than current buttons. It might work something like expose, and especially if the channels are sorted the way iTunes sorts music (album, genre, playlist, rating), it might be a breeze to go through.
So you have ratings; then you only see the top 10 shows at any time. Or you browse via genre; or via station. Terrestrial TV only has roughly 15 or so stations, max, at any one time (at least when I grew up).
If you are using Cable, I imagine that is where a wireless keyboard comes into play; Spotlight/iTunes like live search: "Desp" will bring up instantly "Desperate Housewives", "Desperado", and "Desperation", all showing right now. I mean, you're looking for shows, right? There's no reason to look up numbers, after all if you're browsing through TV guide, you're looking up the station for the show you want to watch, and not the station itself!
Hmm, hunt through a bunch of buttons on a possibly poorly laid out remote in a possibly dark room, or navigate through three menus to activate closed captioning?
Often, too, with modern TVs, you STILL have to navigate through three menus using poorly designed rubber buttons.
There's a balance between the two of course; this is why the Apple remote has 6, and not 5 or 4 buttons, though possibly they could up it to 8 and still have an elegant design. A remote with 39 buttons isn't exactly the paragon of good design itself.
Which is like saying, "The iPod doesn't actually store music, it functions as a relay that allows you to control iTunes when it's docked to your PC"
The iPod is a self contained "music center PC", while the XBox, and now the XBox 360", are not Media Center PCs despite having all the necessary hardware to be so, if Microsoft so chose. Why they didn't, I do not know.
Comparing the XBox numbers to the iPod numbers, shouldn't you be asking, "Would you rather sell 10 million units of something at a loss, or 40 million units of something with a profit?"
I'm not certain you understand what falsifiable means.
If this theory is scientific, it is falsifiable, and if you can prove the falsifiable statements true, then the theory itself cannot be true.
There are plenty of scientific theories that, at the time, sounded stupid.
The speed of light is constant is one such idea. It is also a falsifiable statement, because to disprove that the speed of light is constant you need merely cast light at a speed faster than c.
So when someone uses the term falsifiable in context with, say, Intelligent Design, it means the proposition "Life requires an Intelligent Designer" is only scientific if you can make testable converses from the original proposition.
There is only one way to create a falsifiable experiment: "Life does not require an Intelligent Designer." You can't run any experiments or have any observations to prove either, so ID is not scientific.
On the other hand the proposition of evolution, "Those most fit survive, and reproduce," has an easy falsifiable statement: "The least fit survive and reproduce." We can actually create experiments and show that the least fit don't survive and reproduce, see that yes, it is true (mostly) that those most fit survive and reproduce. Another way to test the statement is to say, "The most fit die and fail to reproduce".
The XBox wasn't a baby step. It was jumping in feetfirst into the deep end, losing billions and costing billions.
The Mac mini is a baby step; cost effective, profitable, yet tentative. The iPod with video is a baby step; heck, even the original iPod was a baby step.
Apple has undertaken several baby steps to get themselves into the living room: iPod Mac mini iMac with Front Row Airport Express iTunes Music Store iTunes Video Store
Each one works on the experiences of the others and feeds off the successes of each other. Apple watches how Creative (mis)handles MP3 players and comes out with the iPod, watches how Sony and Creative and Real create jukeboxes and creates a correspondingly better one itself, watches how poor music stores are written and creates a nice one, etc.
Microsoft, in comparison hasn't taken any baby steps. It debuts the Media Center PC without any segue devices into the home, then years later introduces the XBox sans media center functionality, then introduce the XBox 360, again sans Media Center functionality.
If Microsoft were doing baby steps, why not release the XBox with build in Media Center functionality? It had the harddrive already, the DVD drive, the CPU! Why not use the XBox to refine the media center functionality, instead of a gaming PC? Why not introduce the XBox mini, who's sole purpose is to lower the price point for the XBox to $99, act as a DVR, and a digital hub? Of course they can't do it because Intel sees no reason to, but that is why you parter with AMD! Create a purpose built CPU, integrate the GPU and other hardware, for a system on a chip so that they can release an entire console with only three components and four devices!
Instead they end of life the XBox the same day the XBox 360 is released; unlike how Sony has successfully kept the PSOne and PS2 alive these past years, and likely will continue to support PS2 for years after the PS3 is out.
You're right, a logo and a brand are not interchangeable, but a logo is part of a brand, and definitely part of a product.
I also think the OP used the word logo interchangeably with brand because people don't tend to buy logos, though if they do like a company they may buy other products with that logo (Apple t-shirts, XBox mugs, whatever).
The problem with your "logic" is that it isn't. It's your rationale for not buying logoed products, but it isn't actually logic.
The important question is, "Is a logoed product the same as an un-logoed product?"
The answer is, "Only if the unlogoed product is identical to a logoed product".
So the true logic involved is to actually determine that the products are identical. You spent how much gas, how much time, and how many pairs of jeans to compare the Tommy Hillfiger jeans to the Walmart jeans? Instead of paying $60, you actually have to do the work to compare, and for some people that isn't worth it.
Then there is brand reputation. Buying your kid an Apple iPod, with the Apple logo, vs the knockoff Chinese brand with the pear logo, is not an exercise in buying reasonable substitutes, as you imply. It's about product quality, trust, and reliability.
Of course there is also the people who buy for 'lifestyle recognition'. They are imitating other people who set the image. I buy an iPod, a Mazda3, or a London Fog because it's the best, while my peers and friends buy iPods because I buy iPods, drive a Mazda3, wear a London Fog, whatever. They don't have the skills, the resources, the time, or the energy to do their own footwork, so they let me do it instead.
Actually, if you have similar needs and requirements, you know, now, one solution that works better than the other solutions that SouthPark started out with.
Yes, we learned that the OS should not attempt to read the user's mind. Apple fixed that problem by not installing software without the user's consent.
If Microsoft sells a $600 console for $400, and that $600 console is compared to a $1300 computer, it would make sense that the components chosen for that console are cheaper than that for the computer, right? Especially if Apple's historic 20%-ish margin applies, so that the $1300 computer really costs Apple $1000, then taking out the $200 or so for the LCD to make the systems comparable, Apple's parts must cost Apple more than Microsoft's parts cost Microsoft.
This is even bigger when you compare to a PowerMac, which costs something like $2k!
So if Apple can be expected to move 2 million G5s next year, and Microsoft is expecting to move 3 million XBoxes, I really do think Apple is still the more profitable business to IBM.
Of course, but at current price points it seems that IBM should get 2 to 3 times more revenue from Apple, comparing the cost of a PowerMac or iMac to an XBox or Revolution, so that even if Microsoft and Nintendo combined move twice as many units as Apple, they still aren't as profitable; of course Sony is going to skew the market heavily, as the current reigning champion, but if I am not mistaken they are taking to fabbing the Cell processor themselves, as well, robbing IBM of the revenue they will be getting from Microsoft, Apple, and Nintendo.
I get my numbers from Apple here: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11results .html Over 1 million Macs in the last quarter, 600k of them IBM supplied. Which means in a healthy year (it it looks to be shaping into one), Apple will ship over 2 million G5 based Macs in the next year, making them nearly as large a customer as Microsoft, and when you factor in that the G5 is probably a higher margin part for IBM than the Xenon (though no guarantees), it would seem to place Apple in the same ballpark as Microsoft, as a customer.
If Apple is particularly lucky, Apple could move even more G5 units!
Of course Apple is dwarfed by the combination of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, but on it's own it's as large a customer as any of them individually (especially when factoring in the estimated ship dates and price points of the respective consoles). So losing Apple for Microsoft is a wash, while a gain with Sony, with Nintendo already a customer.
Apple, right now, is a marquee brand, a flagship to crow about. They've got a lot of consumer awareness with the iPod, more so than the XBox , when you consider that there are more iPods sold every quarter than Microsoft can sell XBoxes in a year. I guess we'll see how IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, and Nintendo do in a year.
*OT: I do expect Apple to do well partnered with Intel. There's no reason not to; Intel is a strong partner, even if they aren't as innovative as IBM or AMD, they still have a highly reputable product and dependable supply, something you don't get with AMD (history of cheap parts still haunts them) or IBM (history of shortages haunts them).
Apple shipped over 600k G5 desktops last quarter; Microsoft shipped only 400k XBox 360s this Christmas. Apple probably also shipped another 600k G5 desktops in the same period Microsoft shipped their consoles.
So right now Apple ships more high margin units than Microsoft does. Maybe by next march that will shift when Sony unleashes the PS3, but if it's only Microsoft vs Apple, Apple is still the bigger customer!
Well, consider that only 400k or so XBoxes have shipped and 0 PS3s have shipped, and Apple shipped 600k iMacs and PowerMacs in Q4 2005 (both of which use Power based G5s), Apple is STILL IBM's biggest customer.
Now Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo may have potentially larger markets, but right now Apple is still shipping more G5s than Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo combined, that and each G5 is higher margin than a Cell based CPU.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean all societies should die?
I can give you examples of anime and video games that do poorly in Japan but do well here... due to differences in culture.
Metal Gear Solid was not so hot in Japan, such that Metal Gear Solid 2 was released in the US FIRST. Likewise the anime Escaflowne did poorly in Japan but well here in the US.
The Japanese may be racist, but so are Americans, what with their preferences for Detroit steel and stuff. Whatever. Everyone is subtly, grossly, or contextually racist, but that's not enough to kill a product. If the XBox 360 had compelling games, then it will succeed DESPITE Japanese racism.
I actually don't think that an Nintendo XBox 360 launched with Project: Gotham Racer, Need For Speed, Call of Duty, Kameo, Criminal Intent, or Gun would do well. Nintendo would, I think, launch with at least Mario/Link/Samus product, probably a Pokemon title, three puzzle titles, a voice activated dating sim, some kind of wacky Para Para game, and probably a fly fishing game, and that would be a big hit.
Keep track of this, in a year. We'll see what Nintendo launches with, because this is what kind of games they launched the DS with.
Right. That explains why the Japanese hate the iPod and are buying Sony Walkmen.. wait, they don't hate the iPod.
Or why they hate McDonalds... wait, they don't hate McDonalds.
Or why they hate the US... no wait, they don't hate the US.
Call it for what it is, Microsoft mis-stepped. They didn't have any compelling games for the Japanese market. Japanese games like Katmari Damacy, DDR, Lumines, DOA, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, etc.
You've proved nothing because Nintendo or Sony DIDN'T release a console with the same launch titles and do better. When the DS was launched, there was the Mario games, there was the quirking date-sim games, there was the Meteos puzzle game, etc. When the PSP was launched there was the Metal Gear Acid rpg game, there was the Lumines puzzle game, etc. Where are the puzzle games for XBox 360? Where are the dating sim games for the XBox 360? Where are the RPGs for the XBox 360?
That was my point about baby steps.
Microsoft takes a shotgun approach, rather than an evolution/growth approach. Here are Microsoft's strategies in the past several years:
Microsoft UltimateTV settop box hardware (but not offered with XBox, XBox 360, or Media Center)
Microsoft Media Center Edition coupled with a PC (but not with XBox, XBox 360, or UltimateTV service)
Microsoft XBox PC in every living room (but with no Media Center functionality, no PVR functionality)
Microsoft XBox 360 in every living room (but with no Media Center functionality, no PVR functionality)
In the past several years Microsoft has undertaken four different ways to get into the living room without actually coordinating or growing each attempt to support the other attempts. Each time they decided to "forget" the previous attempt. It took intrepid users to hack MCE functionality into the XBox!
Menu->Navigate->Scan->Enter
Or
Menu->Up
Or
Up/Down
It boils down to design. If you're browsing channels, you might as well have a dedicated 'browse/scan/surf' function. If you're skipping through stations, then all you need to do is Up/Down, assuming volume is Left/Right. Are you asking for a keypad so you can go "014->enter", "022->enter", "036->enter"? You don't see iPods with number pads do you? People have been successfully navigating thousands, tens of thousands, of songs on iPods with only five buttons and a scroll wheel for years now.
Actually, do a Google for HP Tunes. There was at least one company (guess!) that produced a WMCE PC that played... iTMS files on their PC! Wow! Even if it is using Quicktime in the background, isn't that what you want?
Of course Gates doesn't even let WMP for Mac play protected WMA/WMV, so small chance the iPod would as well.
Apple could always conceivably build in a wireless mouse, ala the Revolution controller, to make menu navigation and guide navigation even FASTER than current buttons. It might work something like expose, and especially if the channels are sorted the way iTunes sorts music (album, genre, playlist, rating), it might be a breeze to go through.
So you have ratings; then you only see the top 10 shows at any time.
Or you browse via genre; or via station. Terrestrial TV only has roughly 15 or so stations, max, at any one time (at least when I grew up).
If you are using Cable, I imagine that is where a wireless keyboard comes into play; Spotlight/iTunes like live search: "Desp" will bring up instantly "Desperate Housewives", "Desperado", and "Desperation", all showing right now. I mean, you're looking for shows, right? There's no reason to look up numbers, after all if you're browsing through TV guide, you're looking up the station for the show you want to watch, and not the station itself!
Hmm, hunt through a bunch of buttons on a possibly poorly laid out remote in a possibly dark room, or navigate through three menus to activate closed captioning?
Often, too, with modern TVs, you STILL have to navigate through three menus using poorly designed rubber buttons.
There's a balance between the two of course; this is why the Apple remote has 6, and not 5 or 4 buttons, though possibly they could up it to 8 and still have an elegant design. A remote with 39 buttons isn't exactly the paragon of good design itself.
Which is like saying, "The iPod doesn't actually store music, it functions as a relay that allows you to control iTunes when it's docked to your PC"
The iPod is a self contained "music center PC", while the XBox, and now the XBox 360", are not Media Center PCs despite having all the necessary hardware to be so, if Microsoft so chose. Why they didn't, I do not know.
Comparing the XBox numbers to the iPod numbers, shouldn't you be asking, "Would you rather sell 10 million units of something at a loss, or 40 million units of something with a profit?"
I'm not certain you understand what falsifiable means.
If this theory is scientific, it is falsifiable, and if you can prove the falsifiable statements true, then the theory itself cannot be true.
There are plenty of scientific theories that, at the time, sounded stupid.
The speed of light is constant is one such idea. It is also a falsifiable statement, because to disprove that the speed of light is constant you need merely cast light at a speed faster than c.
So when someone uses the term falsifiable in context with, say, Intelligent Design, it means the proposition "Life requires an Intelligent Designer" is only scientific if you can make testable converses from the original proposition.
There is only one way to create a falsifiable experiment: "Life does not require an Intelligent Designer." You can't run any experiments or have any observations to prove either, so ID is not scientific.
On the other hand the proposition of evolution, "Those most fit survive, and reproduce," has an easy falsifiable statement: "The least fit survive and reproduce." We can actually create experiments and show that the least fit don't survive and reproduce, see that yes, it is true (mostly) that those most fit survive and reproduce. Another way to test the statement is to say, "The most fit die and fail to reproduce".
Another way
The XBox wasn't a baby step. It was jumping in feetfirst into the deep end, losing billions and costing billions.
The Mac mini is a baby step; cost effective, profitable, yet tentative. The iPod with video is a baby step; heck, even the original iPod was a baby step.
Apple has undertaken several baby steps to get themselves into the living room:
iPod
Mac mini
iMac with Front Row
Airport Express
iTunes Music Store
iTunes Video Store
Each one works on the experiences of the others and feeds off the successes of each other. Apple watches how Creative (mis)handles MP3 players and comes out with the iPod, watches how Sony and Creative and Real create jukeboxes and creates a correspondingly better one itself, watches how poor music stores are written and creates a nice one, etc.
Microsoft, in comparison hasn't taken any baby steps. It debuts the Media Center PC without any segue devices into the home, then years later introduces the XBox sans media center functionality, then introduce the XBox 360, again sans Media Center functionality.
If Microsoft were doing baby steps, why not release the XBox with build in Media Center functionality? It had the harddrive already, the DVD drive, the CPU! Why not use the XBox to refine the media center functionality, instead of a gaming PC? Why not introduce the XBox mini, who's sole purpose is to lower the price point for the XBox to $99, act as a DVR, and a digital hub? Of course they can't do it because Intel sees no reason to, but that is why you parter with AMD! Create a purpose built CPU, integrate the GPU and other hardware, for a system on a chip so that they can release an entire console with only three components and four devices!
Instead they end of life the XBox the same day the XBox 360 is released; unlike how Sony has successfully kept the PSOne and PS2 alive these past years, and likely will continue to support PS2 for years after the PS3 is out.
You're right, a logo and a brand are not interchangeable, but a logo is part of a brand, and definitely part of a product.
I also think the OP used the word logo interchangeably with brand because people don't tend to buy logos, though if they do like a company they may buy other products with that logo (Apple t-shirts, XBox mugs, whatever).
*Number made up, of course.
The problem with your "logic" is that it isn't. It's your rationale for not buying logoed products, but it isn't actually logic.
The important question is, "Is a logoed product the same as an un-logoed product?"
The answer is, "Only if the unlogoed product is identical to a logoed product".
So the true logic involved is to actually determine that the products are identical. You spent how much gas, how much time, and how many pairs of jeans to compare the Tommy Hillfiger jeans to the Walmart jeans? Instead of paying $60, you actually have to do the work to compare, and for some people that isn't worth it.
Then there is brand reputation. Buying your kid an Apple iPod, with the Apple logo, vs the knockoff Chinese brand with the pear logo, is not an exercise in buying reasonable substitutes, as you imply. It's about product quality, trust, and reliability.
Of course there is also the people who buy for 'lifestyle recognition'. They are imitating other people who set the image. I buy an iPod, a Mazda3, or a London Fog because it's the best, while my peers and friends buy iPods because I buy iPods, drive a Mazda3, wear a London Fog, whatever. They don't have the skills, the resources, the time, or the energy to do their own footwork, so they let me do it instead.
It has transdimensional travel!
Actually, if you have similar needs and requirements, you know, now, one solution that works better than the other solutions that SouthPark started out with.
Yes, we learned that the OS should not attempt to read the user's mind. Apple fixed that problem by not installing software without the user's consent.
Yes I do, actually.
If Microsoft sells a $600 console for $400, and that $600 console is compared to a $1300 computer, it would make sense that the components chosen for that console are cheaper than that for the computer, right? Especially if Apple's historic 20%-ish margin applies, so that the $1300 computer really costs Apple $1000, then taking out the $200 or so for the LCD to make the systems comparable, Apple's parts must cost Apple more than Microsoft's parts cost Microsoft.
This is even bigger when you compare to a PowerMac, which costs something like $2k!
So if Apple can be expected to move 2 million G5s next year, and Microsoft is expecting to move 3 million XBoxes, I really do think Apple is still the more profitable business to IBM.
Of course, but at current price points it seems that IBM should get 2 to 3 times more revenue from Apple, comparing the cost of a PowerMac or iMac to an XBox or Revolution, so that even if Microsoft and Nintendo combined move twice as many units as Apple, they still aren't as profitable; of course Sony is going to skew the market heavily, as the current reigning champion, but if I am not mistaken they are taking to fabbing the Cell processor themselves, as well, robbing IBM of the revenue they will be getting from Microsoft, Apple, and Nintendo.
I get my numbers from Apple here: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/oct/11results .html
Over 1 million Macs in the last quarter, 600k of them IBM supplied. Which means in a healthy year (it it looks to be shaping into one), Apple will ship over 2 million G5 based Macs in the next year, making them nearly as large a customer as Microsoft, and when you factor in that the G5 is probably a higher margin part for IBM than the Xenon (though no guarantees), it would seem to place Apple in the same ballpark as Microsoft, as a customer.
If Apple is particularly lucky, Apple could move even more G5 units!
Of course Apple is dwarfed by the combination of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, but on it's own it's as large a customer as any of them individually (especially when factoring in the estimated ship dates and price points of the respective consoles). So losing Apple for Microsoft is a wash, while a gain with Sony, with Nintendo already a customer.
Apple, right now, is a marquee brand, a flagship to crow about. They've got a lot of consumer awareness with the iPod, more so than the XBox , when you consider that there are more iPods sold every quarter than Microsoft can sell XBoxes in a year. I guess we'll see how IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, and Nintendo do in a year.
*OT: I do expect Apple to do well partnered with Intel. There's no reason not to; Intel is a strong partner, even if they aren't as innovative as IBM or AMD, they still have a highly reputable product and dependable supply, something you don't get with AMD (history of cheap parts still haunts them) or IBM (history of shortages haunts them).
They aren't forced to support Intel; they chose Intel for the x86 and will choose to drop Motorola and IBM eventually (possibly).
Nor were they forced to support IBM; they chose IBM for the G5 and dropped IBM for the G3.
The only CPU they are 'forced' to support is Motorola, because they don't have a replacement for the G4, until Intel.
Apple has a choice; they decided, two years ago, to go with IBM instead of Intel or AMD, though that choice existed too.
Today Apple decided to support x86, instead of AMD or IBM, and that's just another choice.
Right now Apple has the choice of supporting any of three different architectures:
Motorola/Freescale G4
IBM G5
Intel x86
They can choose the best CPU for their needs.
What's so idiotic about that?
Eventually, yes. Now, no.
Apple shipped over 600k G5 desktops last quarter; Microsoft shipped only 400k XBox 360s this Christmas. Apple probably also shipped another 600k G5 desktops in the same period Microsoft shipped their consoles.
So right now Apple ships more high margin units than Microsoft does. Maybe by next march that will shift when Sony unleashes the PS3, but if it's only Microsoft vs Apple, Apple is still the bigger customer!
Well, consider that only 400k or so XBoxes have shipped and 0 PS3s have shipped, and Apple shipped 600k iMacs and PowerMacs in Q4 2005 (both of which use Power based G5s), Apple is STILL IBM's biggest customer.
Now Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo may have potentially larger markets, but right now Apple is still shipping more G5s than Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo combined, that and each G5 is higher margin than a Cell based CPU.
Yes, but volume and margin aren't the same. That's like being excited at being the CPU supplier for iPods; 6m a quarter!
Of course it's nothing to laugh at, but it's a totally different market than the desktop CPU.