RolStoppable said:
Yes and no. That's the funny thing about it. I think it was in 1997 that Ken Kutaragi made it crystal clear that Sony's real competition isn't Nintendo or Sega, rather it's Microsoft who didn't even make consoles at the time. Kutaragi's vision was always that one day a box in the living room would provide all kinds of entertainment, so video games merely served as an entry point to get a box in people's living rooms. Because of that vision and the success of the PS1, Microsoft saw Windows threatened and entered the console business. Xbox was a defensive strategy to protect Windows. The two key points: 1. Windows had to remain the ultimate platform for entertainment. It's because of these reasons that Microsoft didn't exit the market after losing $4 billion with the original Xbox. Windows was worth a lot more than $4 billion, so a presence in the console market was justified. The PS3 constituted Kutaragi's masterpiece. It was PlayStation in the form that he had always envisioned. Unfortunately for him, it turned out to be a big failure and Sony promoted him into retirement. The consequences of this failure can be seen in the PS4. Firstly, the dream of the entertainment box is dead; not only did the PS3 fail, but smart devices decentralized the living room, so a stationary device has not even a theoretical chance to pull it off anymore. Secondly, after the costly Cell processor, Sony switched to a PC-like architecture which means that the porting process between PC and PlayStation is very easy and therefore games will release on both platforms. Both of these things are favorable for Microsoft. Sony won the console war in the sense of selling the most consoles, but they lost it in terms of the endgame. As mentioned, the endgame went well beyond video games. If we now shift our attention to Microsoft's perspective, Windows being safe against PlayStation means that there is less need for Xbox. Microsoft's full force attempt at the endgame (control over living room entertainment) with Xbox One was a failure, so that too means less need for Xbox. This explains why Microsoft ceased to make Xbox-exclusive games. This explains why Microsoft has been a lot less aggressive in pursuing deals for third party games (exclusivity and/or marketing). Fans on both the Sony and Microsoft side should stop to expect that Microsoft will put up a serious fight with Xbox. It would cost a lot of money, but the profits that can be earned in the video game business are peanuts by Microsoft's standards. |
Doesn't matter people always want to troll/hate if it is not consoles....It is JRPG VS WRPGs...some people love war.
Anyway their is also no good reason why Phil would be fired. ed Fries/Peter Moore/Don Mattrack all lost money with Xbox except for DM who only made money the last years. While Phil basically made money with the xbox division.
Phil also was semi-responsibe for the MineCraft deal that at first people thought would just end up losing a lot of money for MS while now it is keeping making money (60-70 million copies sold after MS bought it/Merchandise/dlc packs/etc).
He made an gamer friendly system. BC (black ops2 las bc release ended up being one of the top most played games on xone for the month). Let gamers refund their game and many more .. Last important one in the list is ofcourse Xbox pass.
