| eugene said: Microsoft knows that they could do a death blow or at least significant damage if they followed with similar price cuts or at least bundle Halo 3 this holiday but their not. Why? |
Microsoft has already lost $6.5 billion on their games venture since 2001, due to bad planning, dependence on FPS games and sheer corporate arrogance, so they're under lots of pressure to cut their losses. I'm not sure a price cut would help them at this point, though. Their hardware quality issues are what killed them in Europe and Japan, and there's no short-term fix for that.
Microsoft's position in the console market is surprisingly tenuous. They have no way to compete with the Wii at the low end, and they have no media strategy comparable to Sony's emphasis on BluRay and multimedia functionality. Add up sales of the PS2, PS3, Wii and 360, and Microsoft is still slogging along with about a quarter of world market share. And this is as good as it gets for the 360 - its lead in software will vanish, and go into reverse, as all those exclusives from Sony and Nintendo studios hit.
