Hyruken said:
I think the best way to look at it is if we go back prior to E3. PS3 sales were up year on year and 360 was down in a lot of areas. It was only really up in US/UK. To claw back the 1.5m they have or so Sony had to do a lot, they had a big price cut, a new model and released a lot of good games. In that period MS did almost nothing. No price cut for 2 years, in fact in some places it went up in price!, no new model, little in the way of exclusive games etc etc.
Point being a lot of Sony's momentum was down to there being no resistance from MS side. They were making profit, had a big lead over PS3, they had no reason to instantly follow Sony and reduce price. They waited their time. They let Sony play their cards because Sony needed to. Without Sony having the price cut and new model sales would of been bad and even the strongest of PS3 fanboy must admit that is true. Sony had to react to what was happening as let's be honest here they were taking a hammering.
Roll on a year and MS have started to play their cards. Everyone knew it was coming, it was no secret. There was no way MS was going to go into a 3rd year without having dropped the price officially for the 360. And as expected they drop the price and bring out a new model at e3. The realists were saying it for a long long time
In my opinion this is not MS's main card left to play. This is just a water tester. The real card they will play will be this new cheaper arcade slim. If it is the £99 rumoured then that will in my opinion be the last card MS do this gen. The console will sell by the truck load. The 1.5m Sony made back against the 360 could be wiped out pretty quickly.
As we all know sales are effected by momentum. Sony had it for almost a year. They did a lot to get it and they deserved the sales from it. They put out some of the best games of any gen on any console in the past 12 months.
The tide of momentum has now shifted back to 360. The new model is more expensive then the previous 360 but it is selling well. The real price cut will happen in a couple of months.
MS will have the new slim released in the rest of the world in the next month. The new cheaper arcade version. Kinect, But on top of that it has a couple of real AAA games in Halo and Gears. The next year is set-up to be very good sales wise for 360.
So the question becomes "what cards have sony got left to play to re-gain the momentum?".
A price cut? Sony announced recently they started to make profit on each PS3 sold. Obviously not much but profit is profit. Would they price cut and go back to making a loss? With the console now almost into it's 5th year i think they now have no choice but to concentrate on making profit. The company has not done so well over recent years making big losses. There will be no big price cut coming. A small £25 cut at best.
A new model? Not even a year since the last one, not going to happen.
Move. Buying a console and move will cost you in the region of £400. Not many people will be paying that to play move. Move will dominantly be people who already have a PS3.
GT5. This is the last true AAA game Sony has left. The game is massive and will sell millions and millions. But soon as November hits, the game is gone. Beyond that period the titles look very weak in comparison to what MS will put out. Gears 3 and Fable 3 will sell more then Killzone 3,Resistance 3 and Twisted Metal combined.
So personally i think MS have played this gen perfectly in terms of timing. This holiday will be the last big holiday for 360. Beyond this holiday they will have played their cards. There will be nothing left for them to do but start thinking about the next gen. By the end of this holiday i expect the 360-PS3 gap to have again reached 6m. At that point it becomes nearly impossible for PS3 unless they can price cut the PS3. I don't think we will see a proper price cut to that until this time next year.
As Source said a few months ago, the peak of this gen has now passed.
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