will/is the 360 a success?

[ultimate123]

TheBigFatJ said:

sorrowsfountain said:

has the 360 reached a stable plateau for sales or are there games on the horizon that will push sales? clearly it has/will be more successful than the original in total sales and profit but its actual market share worldwide could wind up the same or even less when this generation ends. would that make it a sucess or failure? please apply logic to responses and offer concrete answers.

Assuming that 'success' in this generation is defined by profit, as Microsoft said it would be in the second generation, then the Xbox 360 is a failure so far and will very likely be a failure by the end of the generation.  But things aren't so black and white.

Things changed this generation in North America.  If it wasn't for the 360's ridiculous failure rate, which MS still hasn't fixed, and the huge surprise of the Wii behemoth which has no known end to its demand, Microsoft might be in a different position right now. MS did a lot of things right this generation, and had they been more careful and a little more lucky with their gameplan, they might be dominating.

Depending on how market share shakes out, and how Microsoft handles its 360 failure rate issue going forward (it needs to get fixed), MS could very reasonable consider the 360 a success if it grabbes significantly more market share than the original Xbox did, or it shows potential in generating several profitable years.  However, since Microsoft is shielding their profit reports from the cost of the RROD repairs, those should be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm inclined to say that the 360 is on its way to success but the reliabilty issue is a signficant hurdle for MS to negotiate.  If they handle it well, their chance of having a serious success on their hands will be high. 

 

MS posted a profit this quater.