The single most bone-headed mistake any game company has ever made, probably in the history of the biz:
Microsoft pulling the plug on the Xbox as fast as it did, and basically telling Xbox owners to buy a 360.
Why? Simple: China, Russia, Eastern Europe, urban India and Latin America are all growing like mad. That's a potential market of 500 million consumers, maybe more. Microsoft is thinking like a software monopolist: those regions have low average GDPs, can't afford namebrand software and pirate like mad, so forget about them. But Sony and Nintendo are thinking long-term: go ahead, buy those mod-chipped PS2/PSP/Wii/DS units and ripped software. We don't care -- because we'll sell zillions of handhelds, electronics and Blu-Ray discs to newly-wealthy consumers who realize "Sony + Nintendo = outrageous pixel fun." Microsoft has almost nothing to offer the single most important growth market for games over the next 10 years. Unfreakingbelievable.
