What should Microsoft do?

[fastyxx]

Prodigy_BE said:

And as it seems, they don't have a clue. So lets help 'em out, by giving them a list of actions:

 

1. A BIG pricedrop, of all three SKU's, plus a pricedrop in perhipals like the HDD and stuff

2. Buying three or four high class developers to get more exclusives (Take 2, Capcom...)

3. Making Xbox Live free, or at least lowering it's price.

4. Fixing ALL noise and RROD on every new machine they sell in the future

5. Release a (silent) externalblu-ray player, and exchanging it for free to people who own the HD-DVD one.

 

Here's the problem with these:

 1.  Sales are UP in their primar market versus last year for most weeks.   You have to seel a LOT more consoles to make up the drop in price, andMS is just starting to make gaming profitable.  I wouldn't expect them to slash prices just to sell more than PS3.  The financial guys at MS aren't dumb - if they felt they would make huge sales ground up they'd have done it by now.  Agreed on peripherals, though I'd argue the same concept applies. 

 Peripherals for all consoles are overpriced but are where they make good profits.  Once they have you sold on the console, you just need to buy some of them, and they know it.  True for all brands.

2.  Exclusives are SO expensive and by the time they came to market, it's be 2011, so what's the point?

3.  I really doubt Live being free is changing people's minds.  It's less than a game a year, and the price has never been raised, and the vast majority of the people who pay for it continue to pay for it, which means they see it as a decent value. 

4.  They will never get rid of the noise, because it's reqa functio of making the drive run at the speed it does.  PS3, for example, is quieter because the drive runs so slowly.  I'd personally have my stuff load faster and turn up the volume, without a doubt. 

 5.  Why would I give up my HD-DVD drive?  It's awesome and it would make all the movies I bought for it a huge waste of money.  It would cost as more to replace all the movies than it would be to buy a new Blu-Ray player/PS3.  The people that invested in an add-on player knew that it wasn't going to last forever - you need a 360 to use it.  That's why it was cheap compared to others.  I still don't see the reason people are riled up about that whole deal.  Blu-Ray prices have gone up now.  Is that what people wanted?

 

This isn't a defense of the console at all.  It's just that there are no magic solutions to it.  If there were easy answers, they'd have been made already.