"When you look at an installed base basis, the Xbox 360's going to come in third place when all's said and done," said DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole. "The concern I would have with a company like Microsoft is, one of these days they're going to have to make a profit on this business otherwise why are they in it?" ...Cole argued that, despite Microsoft's perceived failure to appeal beyond its core audience, it was still possible for publishers to do strong business in 360's bread-and-butter areas. "If you're doing a first-person shooter title, you're clearly going to want to be on Xbox 360, and that's for years to come," he offered. "[But] their efforts at marketing outside of the first-person shooter crowd have been disastrous." In March, Microsoft hired former Nintendo Europe boss David Gosen to spearhead its drive for casual gamers on the continent. ...Asked whether there was any chance Microsoft might reconsider its place in the console business, Cole said: "I think there's always that risk. They will have to assess their position after this round, and clearly they were very committed to saying they were going to stick with this business through another console system. They haven't really talked much beyond that and I know that really at some point they are going to have to figure out how they're going to make money out of this business." He added that DFC Intelligence expected to "see the Xbox 360 start to struggle in the market" over the next 12 months, but added that Sony faced a similar challenge into turning its PlayStation 3 business into profit. ...For Cole, Nintendo's historical issues with third-party support poses a risk: "It's a huge issue that Nintendo dominates the platforms they own, as that's how they make all their money," he said. "We see the Wii having a higher installed base but the PS3 generating, by about 2010-11, more revenue in terms of software." |
DFC Intelligence, it's like an oxymoron. Or in other words: DFC Intelligence = the Ubisoft of the analyst world.
