I just wanted to get something quickly down on paper and out of my head (my opinions);

 

So MS the largest software company[Assumption] in the world decided to enter hardware, an area outside of their core competency and they succeeded in bring the 360 to market a full year before the competition and gained market share which would of been alot harder to secure if they released at the same time as Sony.

MS however paid the penalty, their box was underdeveloped and the MS managers, pushed to succeed, cut many corners and many design mistakes were made. As a result MS has had to increase their resources and engineering capability beyond that which they budgeted for and had the RROD to circumvent. Additionally their original designs have hindered the speed in which they could reduce their production cost. An example of this is that they have to blindly manufacture the machine before they can test if the CPU is functional adding to the cost of manufacture.

We have seen that the management team at MS is good at analyzing their weaknesses, With their original xbox, they saw that exclusives killed them, so they worked to reduce this problem and move exclusives away from sony. If MS management understand the problems which plagued them this generation and learn from it, the next xbox will be an outstanding piece of hardware, which should have a very low failure rate and production costs which reduce faster and this will really hurt Sonys bottom line.

MS may have failed in some areas this generation, they are a great competitor, a formidable force against the PS3 and have caused financial pressure for Sony. Imagining that MS doesn't drop the ball next generation and learns from the mistakes they have made with the Xbox360, Sony will need to pull the rabbit out of the hat with the PS4 if they want the PS4 to outsell or match the PS3.

Sony will definitely bring another console to market, if they don't tread carefully it may be their last, especially if they don't have another agenda to push (like Blu-ray). The question is how long will MS and Sony battle it out in the gaming industry before one of them withdraws from the market like Sega or decides to enter their own niece market?.

Well thought out, but the same could be said of Nintendo and Sony. They won't lie down and get steam rolled which is good for all of us.

Nidan said: I just wanted to get something quickly down on paper and out of my head (my opinions);   So MS the largest software company[Assumption] in the world decided to enter hardware, an area outside of their core competency and they succeeded in bring the 360 to market a full year before the competition and gained market share which would of been alot harder to secure if they released at the same time as Sony. MS however paid the penalty, their box was underdeveloped and the MS managers, pushed to succeed, cut many corners and many design mistakes were made. As a result MS has had to increase their resources and engineering capability beyond that which they budgeted for and had the RROD to circumvent. Additionally their original designs have hindered the speed in which they could reduce their production cost. An example of this is that they have to blindly manufacture the machine before they can test if the CPU is functional adding to the cost of manufacture. We have seen that the management team at MS is good at analyzing their weaknesses, With their original xbox, they saw that exclusives killed them, so they worked to reduce this problem and move exclusives away from sony. If MS management understand the problems which plagued them this generation and learn from it, the next xbox will be an outstanding piece of hardware, which should have a very low failure rate and production costs which reduce faster and this will really hurt Sonys bottom line. MS may have failed in some areas this generation, they are a great competitor, a formidable force against the PS3 and have caused financial pressure for Sony. Imagining that MS doesn't drop the ball next generation and learns from the mistakes they have made with the Xbox360, Sony will need to pull the rabbit out of the hat with the PS4 if they want the PS4 to outsell or match the PS3. Sony will definitely bring another console to market, if they don't tread carefully it may be their last, especially if they don't have another agenda to push (like Blu-ray). The question is how long will MS and Sony battle it out in the gaming industry before one of them withdraws from the market like Sega or decides to enter their own niece market?.

I assume you mean niche market, unless you think that selling you nieces is a viable business model.

Seriously though,  both companies are in it to make money, and if theres no money theres no point. As long as they make a reasonable return on investment, there is no reason for either of them to stop.

Well, if they continue to 'fight' like this, on relatively even ground, neither of them would drop out. Sony wouldn't do it because, even though PS3 has already lost them all the profit they made from both previous Playstations, it will look like MS succeeded and beat them. MS won't quit because they have infinite cash and don't necessarily care about profitability in their Game division--they want to stick it to Sony. Even if Sony sold 50 million and MS sold 40 million, they've still put them in their place.

The only major companies to ever fight hard and get knocked out (Atari and Sega) did so because of their own follies.

Atari: didn't regulate what came onto their systems, so basically everything was crap or a clone of a good game.

Sega: Released a new console nearly every year, making consumers lose trust in them. Although, in this case, PS2 hype delivered the finishing blow. Dreamcast sold about 10 million in the first 12 months, so it was very popular.



Even still, both of these companies are still making games (though not of their previous high quality)

So, to compare to Sega, MS would be forced out of the industry if they decided to release the nextbox next year. Sony would quit if they were still many billions in the red by the end of gen AND they felt that the Playstation brand couldn't be redeemed.

The issue is that unlike Sega, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have a little bit more fundamental sence when it comes to their gaming divisions.

Not only this, the market is alot bigger. I don't think any of the current big 3 are going to exit the video game market. Worst case scenario would be that Sony and/or MS would team up in a joint venture if the Wii did too well, and the X360/PS3 did not.

However, my prediction is that Microsoft will team up with Sega, Namco, Capcom, or another big Japanese name next generation with their Xbox, and have them brand, repackage and market the system into Japan.

mrstickball said: The issue is that unlike Sega, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have a little bit more fundamental sence when it comes to their gaming divisions. Not only this, the market is alot bigger. I don't think any of the current big 3 are going to exit the video game market. Worst case scenario would be that Sony and/or MS would team up in a joint venture if the Wii did too well, and the X360/PS3 did not. However, my prediction is that Microsoft will team up with Sega, Namco, Capcom, or another big Japanese name next generation with their Xbox, and have them brand, repackage and market the system into Japan.

Well  namco-bandai releasing the nextbox in japan would be a great japanese move, I mean c'mon, the japanese can't resist gundam and anime.

I don't believe Sony will put another console on the market until they reach their 10 yr goal. That is even if MS and Wii made another console. MS would be stupid to make another console so early. Maybe 5 yr mark... sure. But it will piss alot of ms fans.

Sony will make it's stance with the ps3. The ps3 already gets updated, so who knows what the competition will be like. MS should be careful, because if it did make a new one. It will have to compete with the ps3 again - who would have the greater advantage of games, users and market %.

I hardly think any Japanese developer would team up with the XBOX, specially knowing they will face up Sony and Nintendo, two  of the oldest and more cherrished companies in this country, or do I need to remember what happened when Nintendo left Sony to team up  with Philips, here in Japan, that put Nintendo's name very low.

 

Here people is too nationalistic, and yes, they do love robots, but remember Final Fantasy games have always been the point here, just compare the sales of anime based games and RPG'S 

M$ is very strong .. and SONY stronger

I think M$ will buysmall Japanese company and with money it can do something in japan ..

If sales for the PS3 and XBox 360 continue at the rate they have been, it will be really difficult for these platforms to have long lives mainly because of third party support. Allow me to explain ...

Everyone knows that developing a PS3 or XBox 360 game is amazingly expensive mainly because of how expensive it is to create the artistic assets for the games; this should get less expensive throughout the generation but will stay in the same (basic) range. Most third party publishers justify these development costs because they can release a game to the PS3, XBox 360 and PC for (basically) the same price.

This causes a problem that many people do not realize ... The PS3 and XBox 360 can only continue to see strong third party support as long as both consoles are their manufacturer's main console, and they are powerful enough to receive PC ports. For the first 12 to 18 months of their lives these consoles can remain in the recomended hardware range for most PC games, for the next 18 to 24 months they will fall towards the minimum requirements range, and after that they will have difficulty producing the same game for these systems as well as the PC. (This is one of the main reasons the XBox saw so little support in the second half of 2005 through 2006).

Now, in 2010 or 2011 the PC games will really start to disapear from these consoles libraries which will impact their hardware sales. At this point in time Microsoft or Sony will start looking at how they can release new hardware, recapture these developers attention, and get a jump start on building their next generation userbase. When one of these consoles essentially leaves the market the userbase of the other system has to be large enough to justify exclusive development.

 

This argument (of course) is assuming that neither of the systems ends up begining to sell at a drastically faster rate than it already has been.