Third time is NOT the charm?

[pokoko]

kitler53 said:

the difference being that sony and nintendo had good reason to be arrogant,.. they were leading their markets going into their third consoles.  ms on the other hand was tied for last place.  where their arrogance came from is such a mystery because they never dominated anything. 

I think this was a case of perception overshadowing reality.  The 360 had gained a ton of market-share for the Xbox brand and many people believed, because of that, that the natural progression would be for it to keep gaining.  There honestly wasn't much basis for that but that kind of thinking is common.

I remember threads about "who would win next gen", with even Sony and Nintendo fans naming Microsoft.  I think Microsoft themselves went right along with that flow and started to believe thier own hype.  They thought they were in a position where they could dictate terms to the market, just as Nintendo and Sony tried before, but the market slapped them back down.