Of COURSE its a bad start. They barely beat the most uncool also-ran in the business. They've created a large internal development studio without nearly the value of their competitors. Their supposedly great online gaming presence isn't close to being on the level of a single PC game: World of Warcraft. Their third party support hasn't helped their bottom line at all. That bottom line? Negative Six Billion Dollars.
Look at the history of the industry. New players come out of nowhere and simply explode. Repeatedly. Pong. Atari 2600. NES. Game Boy. PlayStation1 and 2. These are market expanders. They are the standards we judge things by. We don't laud companies for blowing through billions of dollars and doing nothing but gaining goodwill and favor with the "hardcore" segment of the audience. Not when there were 5 massive, market-expanding, industry-shifting systems in just the first 25 years of the market's history.
I don't care if you like XBox and 360. They've gotten a lot of good games. But don't pretend like this analyst is talking out of his ass and that this 3 generation strategy is really working out. It isn't.
So Bungie, Rare, MGS, FASA, Lionhead, Ensemble, ACES, and the remainder of the Microsoft internal development teams are just worthless then, and anything they acquire in the future probably will be, too, right?
WOW: 7 million; Live: 6 million. But then again, what exactly does WOW have to do with consoles? Let's try comparing them to their competitors. Nintendo is a complete and total joke who less than three years ago said "Customers do not want online games." Sony's at least trying, but they've got a ways to go.
The first four on that list had no real competition, if any at all. Sony's competition committed suicide, and Sony, like Microsoft, used its money to buy its way into the industry. Microsoft had to deal with the best brand the industry has ever seen. Like the previous comparison with WOW, this isn't exactly a useful one.
You assume I like Xbox because I defend it. Just like you assume I like Sony because I defend them. Pick an assumption that's right next time. Oh, and an analyst talk out of his ass? Nah, never happen.
Microsoft's worried about Nintendo? When did that happen, and why was I not informed?
