About Malstrom, he is back...here are some parts from his new "the incredible 360" article:
Microsoft cannot be pleased at all about the 360′s performance of late. Anyone who thinks this performance is ‘good’ has not been paying attention to the massive amount Microsoft has spent…
Half a billion dollars just for marketing? And what did this get Microsoft? Tepid sales. NPD January 2010: Xbox 360- 332,800 NPD January 2011: Xbox 360- 381,000 OH MY GOODNESS! THAT IS A 48,000 UNIT INCREASE! What co-option! What a selling to the masses! 48,000 unit increase! Oh my! What is not being mentioned is much of the sales is because the Xbox 360 is cannibalizing the PlayStation 3 sales. Just a year or two ago, the PlayStation 3, still after its remodel, was enjoying a surge in sales and all the analysts could not stop getting so excited (from this fantastic site, I had to calm them down). What happened to the Year of the PS3? And Move is completely gone. Of course, in fairness to Sony, Move did not have a half billion dollar marketing budget. That marketing budget alone could be used to build, make, and launch a new console. That is the massive amount of money was spent.
ottom line is when the going gets tough, Microsoft only has one tactic to compete: use massive amounts of money to force a market outcome. We witnessed this during the first Xbox where Microsoft blew up billions of dollars and hailed itself as incredible geniuses for making a console that sold as well as the Gamecube. We witnessed this again with the company shoving a billion dollars or so to ‘hide’ the repairs for the bungled launch of the Xbox 360 (with failing hardware, production issues, etc.). Now, with Kinect, Microosft can only try to force a market outcome by pumping money into it (this time, half a billion dollars in marketing for a silly accessory). And, sure enough, it isn’t working. Anyone who thinks Kinect is ‘successful’ is not paying attention to the numbers especially the half billion dollars Microsoft unleashed. Half billion dollars for this result? And even then, the Wii still outsold them during December! I’m telling you, folks, Microsoft cannot be pleased with how this turning out. The only solace they have is just how much worse Sony’s Move performed. I still expect six months from now that ‘Microsoft Mushrooms’, like the 32X mushrooms, will begin infesting used game stores.
