No, you got it wrong.

Exclusives like Call of Duty 2, Oblivion, and Gears of War definitely brought interest to the 360. But what helped most was mistakes made with PS3. Most notably, $599 US dollars. The 360 was getting notworthy games and the console was being sold at half the price. Which naturally lead to better 3rd party support and the rest is history.

Its funny you say all we can expect is sequels from MS. Even though they put out plenty of new IPs this gen. And last I checked Sony and Nintendo are relying on sequels heavily on as well.

The paying for online play argument isn't even valid. Clearly its not a mistake because many people choose to pay for the serivce and MS is making big profits from it. If it was as big of an issue as you claim people would have stopped buying Xbox's years ago. Instead it was the best selling console last year.

Were any of those really mistakes?

1. Cheap components. AFAIK the RROD was caused by solder, not a cheap component compromise.

2. Add-ons divided market. Did they? The multimedia strengths of the 360 are still doing very well, even if they launched with an SKU that had no HDD included. The article says MS is unlikely to repeat this... well no ****? The industry is going towards digital distribution. Just look at how each console manufacturer has steadily upped the size of hard drives this gen. No duh they won't be launching without some sort of internal memory next gen.

3. Gimmick external features. Why do they use the plural tense but then only bring up one? Face plates are certainly a bit of a gimmick but a mistake? Why? It was just an optional way to customize the outside look of your 360.

4. Gambling on the wrong format. I don't know how much MS invested into HD-DVD, but whatever it was, sure, that was a mistake. But using the DVD format on the 360 was not a mistake. I'd consider their HD-DVD backing to be separate from the Xbox 360. Including it is like including the Zune. I did chuckle at the "future proof" part. Any sort of physical media format on their next machine would be just as future proof as the DVD format they use now. And it's hard to call the DVD format itself a mistake when they've sold a ton of consoles and we are yet to see any real reason for BluRay being a necessity.

5. This is a mistake? Reaching for straws here, plain and simple.

Xbox is the only console that chews up CDs.

Very inconvenient and annoying.

To make it brief, make the console work, period. For the 1st 3 years, people were playing in fear, never knowing when their 360 would red ring.

Your sentiment is obviously a good one, as in to say that mistakes are bad but that goes without saying.

But your comment makes it sound like the mistakes were choices MS conciously made, which is clearly ridiculous.

That's my problem with the original "article" apart from not even being correct which is unforgivable. The "issues" that were mentioned were desgin choices, not mistakes. Take the "power brick" for example.

1. There's nothing wrong with it and I have never heard that it has put off a potential customer, except an imaginary one - Sony fanboy on the internet who claims he didn't want and Xbox 360 because of it (yeah right).

2. The actual real reason there is a power brick is because it is part of the design of the Xbox 360, putting a PSU inside a console puts a massive burden on it in terms of heat and MS would have decided rightly that for their console design it wasn't feasable to have it inside the console. Sony did manage to incorporate it into their console but that doesn't actually mean anything except it fit in with their overall design. It's possible that the PS4 will have a power brick and it's possible it won't, same for the Xbox 360. But that choice won't be dictated by a customer, it will be dictated by a whole array of reasons, I'm sure the customer view would play a part IF - big if and not a real one - IF it was a free choice.

As in would you like some free money? The answer would be yes.

Would you like to work as my slave for free money? The answer would be no.

The same would apply to RROD and any other design choice. Hell, I'm just pissed off with the article, because the things mentioned aren't even true, were they true. Then it would have been rectified in a later Xbox 360 - like with RROD.

So article has no meaning, no point, and article writer should be burnt alive for ruining my view of humanity that such stupid people exist.

From my memory, Mass Effect 2 and 3 are the few games with annoying disc swaps. Complaining about games with swaps after about 6 - 10 hours is ridiculous.

Furthermore, only a tiny fraction of 360 games actually use multiple discs. Thus proving Bluray was not at all essential this gen. It seems like Bluray has just been a crutch for FMV cutscenes.

Knowing that MS extended warranties made people not fear RROD much. Eitherway, its already been addressed.

Im pretty sure Sony regretted having blu-ray more than MS not having it... financially.

The best part is he said the face plates added nothing to the core experience. That's like complaining seat covers didn't improve a car's performance. Probably the most ridiculous argument ever made about a console. I'd gladly swap the face place on 360 S if it was an option. As I did for my original Xbox 360.

Apparently he feels an external power brick makes the set up a more difficult process. Either he was reaching for straws or severely retarded.

Look guys, I don't know many things but I know that in the world of technology if absolutely ANYTHING else came with defects such as frying up after some months and scratching your discs, it would instantly be history, a distant memory.

 What happened ? MS and the 360 did have and still enjoy unprecedented media* support, in the US at least, that's the real reason they got around the RROD. Everyone knows any other product in such a state would be rendered into a distant memory without the media's support.

So I don't think MS has anything to worry about even with a likewise rushed 720.

 *(tv, mags, gaming sites, anything really)

(gaming media AKA those guys who hate any thing Nintendo)

Ehhh... no.

Strong software, extended warranties, and mistakes made with PS3 helped the 360 more than the media.

MS doesn't have much to worry about because Sony is reeling.

So.. your saying that its good for a product to be remmembered to have the highest failure rate in history? 

I disagree.