Would The Xbox Brand Be More Successful Without The Live Fee..

[scottie]

Dragon_Lord said:

scottie said:
I doubt it. If live were free, then MS would have less money and would have had to do some or all of

Moneyhat less 3rd parties
Build/buy less 1st party studios
Keep hardware prices higher for longer
Have a less comprehensive RRoD return policy
Make a huge loss

None of these are particularly great options imo

I could live without the moneyhating, we'd still get all the content...

You certainly wouldn't get all the content. The wave of JRPG releases for the 360 would never have occured if MS didn't moneyhat. The 360 wouldn't have got late versions of those games, it wouldn't have got poor quality versions of those games. It would not have got those games at all.

 

As for the western games that were moneyhatted, you're right that most of them would have come to the 360 in some form anyway. They would have arrived later, there would have been less exclusive content (which means stronger sales for PS3 and weakens the 360 in general), and PS3 would have remained the lead console on multiplats for a longer time - meaning that the 360 versions of games would be worse and the PS3 versions better.