Nidan on 25 January 2008
I just wanted to get something quickly down on paper and out of my head (my opinions);
So MS the largest software company[Assumption] in the world decided to enter hardware, an area outside of their core competency and they succeeded in bring the 360 to market a full year before the competition and gained market share which would of been alot harder to secure if they released at the same time as Sony.
MS however paid the penalty, their box was underdeveloped and the MS managers, pushed to succeed, cut many corners and many design mistakes were made. As a result MS has had to increase their resources and engineering capability beyond that which they budgeted for and had the RROD to circumvent. Additionally their original designs have hindered the speed in which they could reduce their production cost. An example of this is that they have to blindly manufacture the machine before they can test if the CPU is functional adding to the cost of manufacture.
We have seen that the management team at MS is good at analyzing their weaknesses, With their original xbox, they saw that exclusives killed them, so they worked to reduce this problem and move exclusives away from sony. If MS management understand the problems which plagued them this generation and learn from it, the next xbox will be an outstanding piece of hardware, which should have a very low failure rate and production costs which reduce faster and this will really hurt Sonys bottom line.
MS may have failed in some areas this generation, they are a great competitor, a formidable force against the PS3 and have caused financial pressure for Sony. Imagining that MS doesn't drop the ball next generation and learns from the mistakes they have made with the Xbox360, Sony will need to pull the rabbit out of the hat with the PS4 if they want the PS4 to outsell or match the PS3.
Sony will definitely bring another console to market, if they don't tread carefully it may be their last, especially if they don't have another agenda to push (like Blu-ray). The question is how long will MS and Sony battle it out in the gaming industry before one of them withdraws from the market like Sega or decides to enter their own niece market?.
So MS the largest software company[Assumption] in the world decided to enter hardware, an area outside of their core competency and they succeeded in bring the 360 to market a full year before the competition and gained market share which would of been alot harder to secure if they released at the same time as Sony.
MS however paid the penalty, their box was underdeveloped and the MS managers, pushed to succeed, cut many corners and many design mistakes were made. As a result MS has had to increase their resources and engineering capability beyond that which they budgeted for and had the RROD to circumvent. Additionally their original designs have hindered the speed in which they could reduce their production cost. An example of this is that they have to blindly manufacture the machine before they can test if the CPU is functional adding to the cost of manufacture.
We have seen that the management team at MS is good at analyzing their weaknesses, With their original xbox, they saw that exclusives killed them, so they worked to reduce this problem and move exclusives away from sony. If MS management understand the problems which plagued them this generation and learn from it, the next xbox will be an outstanding piece of hardware, which should have a very low failure rate and production costs which reduce faster and this will really hurt Sonys bottom line.
MS may have failed in some areas this generation, they are a great competitor, a formidable force against the PS3 and have caused financial pressure for Sony. Imagining that MS doesn't drop the ball next generation and learns from the mistakes they have made with the Xbox360, Sony will need to pull the rabbit out of the hat with the PS4 if they want the PS4 to outsell or match the PS3.
Sony will definitely bring another console to market, if they don't tread carefully it may be their last, especially if they don't have another agenda to push (like Blu-ray). The question is how long will MS and Sony battle it out in the gaming industry before one of them withdraws from the market like Sega or decides to enter their own niece market?.
Predictions JAN 08
2008 PS3-19.5M(actual 19.5) XBOX360-23M(actual 27.5) Wii - 37M(actual 45.8M)
End of 2009 PS3-27 25M XBOX360-30 35M Wii - 48 63M (revised DEC 08)
Price Point
Mid 2008 Wii $250 Xbox360$249 Xbox360(HDD)$299 PS3 $399
Mid 2009 Wii $189 Xbox360$199 Xbox360(HDD)$249 PS3 $339
Mid 2010 Wii $ 149 Xbox360$159 Xbox360(HDD)$199 PS3 $289
