starcraft said:
Reasonable said:
Well, I only see what I read from Europe (if you see what I mean) and I see the following:
a) the retail chains seem to have too many Arcades - this is not good. It confuses ordering and takes up valuable retail space. I get the strong feeling MS overlayed Arcade as a play against Wii and should have released far less to retail. It also raises question of whether production of other models had to be reduced to increase Arcade production
b) 360 has been out a while so some change seems due - however MS is not a manufacturer like Sony so a redesign is tougher for them (hell, to be blunt producing good electronic devices point blank is tougher for them). Unless they've managed to keep a big secret (and are willing to blow being profitable for a change by spending a lot on it) I therefore doubt its a new model (a 360 slim if you will). BR addon, new bundle, something like that? Sure. Coupled with price drop would seem much more likely.
c) there do seem to be shortages of Elites / Premium so either they did have trouble increasing production or they got balance of building Arcades vs other models wrong or a combination of the two. I also suspect its harder for them to increase production. Again, this is not their core competancy and the last thing they need is to rush getting some more factories going and produce faulty consoles as a result (it takes time to increase facilities is you want to aim for high quality production) - that on top of RROD legacy would not be worth it IMO
What I have been wondering is how much more do they want to fight this gen? They must see (particularly with Arcade performance) they have no hope of competing for casual/family gamers against Wii in the short to medium term, maybe even the long term.
They've shown already they're willing to risk the appetite of US hardcore gamers for more power and shiny new FPS vs releasing consoles early. So, do they fight aggresively with price cuts, more models, etc. and risk dropping out of profitability now? Or do they chose to stabalize 360, focus on download content, fix RROD and focus on staying ahead of PS3 in US (which I think they could manage) and use groundwork of 360 for their next console while continuing to show a profit?
I think unless they take big risks and spend a lot of money MS has little change of achieving more than 2nd place in US and close 3rd place outside US - but you know what? So long as their install base is larger than Xbox (which it almost certainly will be) and so long as they've improved their standing in all markets (which they will have) - that's not too bad for console number 2, particulary when it was rushed to market.
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A slim would involve less component costs and would make them more money......... |
Yeah but given the trouble MS had getting the 'fat' 360 working right I'm none to convinced they know how to produce a working slim version.
If they do they good for them. But the odds seem against it. At the end of the day, next to Samsung, Toshiba and yes, Sony, MS are small fry as an electronics manufacturer and are still very much in learning mode (as the RROD issues show).
I still think there are too few leaks and other indications of something like a new SKU (at least one that required major technical changes). At most I could see better bundles, a price drop and maybe a BR addon given current market coverage.
I'm still not convinced they didn't just make too many Arcades and too few of anything else and paid the price in January.
