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puffy on 07 January 2010
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kowenicki said:
TheSource said:

Didn't they say in 2007 that they had the best gaming lineup of all time? Then they were essentially beaten by Wii Play, Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero III, and Mario & Sonic...


in your opinion.... frankly all but one of those send me to sleep.

It's obvious he's talking about sales.. The XBOX 360 is in steady decline right now, it sold 11.1 Million consoles in 2008 and last year it sold roughly 10.1 Million. More telling is that it is clear that it has plateaued:

2006: 6.7M

2007: 7.8M

2008: 10.7M

2009: 10.1M

That's the 3rd and 4th year, at roughly the same sales. This is particularly note worthy because it's the 3rd and 4th year of the XBOX 360's life. historically, a consoles peak year is the 3rd. However this generation has been slightly different, the 360 had a slow first year, and the PS3 had a slow start due to a high initial price point. With that said, I don't think the 360 will be able to beat it's 2008 sales in 2010.

Sure it's got Halo: Reach, Splinter Cell: Conviction, FFXIII, Fable 3 and Alan Wake among others, but Nintendo have Mario, Metroid and Zelda, Sony have GT5, God of War 3, FFXIII, MAG, Heavy Rain, and Agent among others. Basically my point is that if Microsoft DIDN'T have that kind of line-up, it'd be no contest and the 360 would decline faster than normal.

The reason I say that is because every single one of those games that are exclusive to the PS3 which is the 360's main threat, is either the first on PS3 or a new IP. It's a clear advantage over the 360 at this point as the PS3 has more potential system sellers. Those games on the 360 will still move hardware just as the Mario, Metroid and Zelda trio will move hardware even though they've already had iterations on Wii but it won't be as much.

The true system seller (the 360's 2010 killer app) is Project Natal. Before you ask then why I think Natal will fail, I must remind you that it won't matter if it fails or not in 2010 (not a whole lot anyway) because it's slated for 'HOLIDAY 2010' which is too late to make up for the sales through the year that were lost due to the momentum carried by the 360's rivals. You see, the PS3's system sellers are GT5, FFXIII and God of War 3 which are all coming in the first half of the year. The more important point is that Sony's motion controller is releasing (most likely) Q2 2010. At least a whole quarter before Natal is released. What this means is that the 360 will lose a lot of momentum to the PS3 during the first half of the year and won't be able to get it back until Q4 with Natal and likely a price drop (perhaps a redesign also?)