The 360 Head Start

[Yajimari21]

NJ5 said:

Yajimari21 said:

couchmonkey said:

Business-wise Xbox 360's head-start definitely turned out to be the right move. I agree with some others who said that MS didn't capitalize on it as much as it could have - the pricing is still kind of high, but that's the luxury Sony afforded Microsoft by pricing the PS3 so high.

If we were to draw comparisons to Sega's early launches, there is one problem Saturn had which now affects 360 to a smaller degree: not seeing the future. Just as Saturn was not being designed for 3D and had to have it shoehorned in, 360 has not been designed for the casual market and now MS is trying to catch up with Nintendo.

Edit: But MS couldn't afford to gamble on a Wii-like system when the Sony set-top box was perceived as a big threat to the Windows market. Since beating PS3 was the top priority, the head-start on a "traditional" system was the right move. It has put 360 in what I think is an insurmountable lead versus the PS3, and it's in a strong enough position that it's still a very attractive platform to publish games on. As HappySquirrel said, it would be hard to justify developing for PS3 and 360 if all three had launched at the same time, since Wii would likely have over half of the market!

Insurmountable in America? Probably. Worldwide? I doubt it. There won't be "PS3 domination," but then again there won't be 360 Domination either. The PS3 will pick up steam throughout 2008 and pass the 360 worldwide by mid-2009.

So not only will the PS3 pick up steam even with its 2008 games getting more and more delays, but the 360 will also magically lose the steam it has, while Microsoft sits, watches and does nothing to counter it?

I'm not saying it can't happen, just saying you have to provide some reasoning to back up your claims if you want your post to be taken as more than just another uninformed opinion.

 

 I highly doubt that any of the AAA games for the PS3 are going to be pushed out of the 2008 calendar year altogether. Taking that into account, 2008 will be much nicer to the PS3 than 2007 was. Yes, the 360 will always have a price advantage over the PS3, but the PS brand name coupled with a reasonable price point and good games will push a lot of people toward the PS3 camp (over the 360)... and to an even greater degree outside of the US (where the 360 will retain an edge in drawing consumers for the remainder of this generation). I know how unreliable anecdotal evidence is, but people in many other places have heard the same thing: a good deal of people are just waiting until 2008 when the price and games for the PS3 are finally reasonable and good. Moreover, it's impossible for the 360 to go anywhere in Japan (even it sell 1 million, the PS3 will most likely have pushed 4-5 million in Japan at the very least), and it will probably end up conceding victory to the PS3 in Europe by a few million as well (mostly due to the Sony-bias of the continent), more than enough to make up for and overcome the lead the 360 has over it in america.