Xbox 360's early start has given Microsoft enough ammo to sell the most consoles in the past.

 However, PS3 is now beating the 360 in Japan, Europe AND the US.

For months, they led us on with excuses of stock shortages and blablabla, but they can not hide it any longer.

Microsoft needs to change stuff, not only in the US, but in Europe and Japan too.

And as it seems, they don't have a clue. So lets help 'em out, by giving them a list of actions:

2. Buying three or four high class developers to get more exclusives (Take 2, Capcom...)

3. Making Xbox Live free, or at least lowering it's price.

4. Fixing ALL noise and RROD on every new machine they sell in the future

5. Release a (silent) externalblu-ray player, and exchanging it for free to people who own the HD-DVD one.

There seem radical measures, but with PS3 having the majority of big gamereleases in the near future, and with blu-ray gaining momentum, they need some serious change of plans, in order to keep from being crushed by Sony.

What's your top 5? 

I don't care to reply, I just can't wait to see Starcraft's answer.

Well they got GTA4 coming up, with their exclusive content. And some people seem convinced that rumoured '360-mote' thing will be a succes. If it ever turns out to be real. And they'll probably have another pricedrop sometime this year. Dunno about games, some people claim more casual-oriented games like Banjo will draw non-gamers toward the xbox360, but I just don't see that happening. Not a lot, anyway. They can't really compete with Wii on that aspect, the Wii was built from the ground up to be an extremely casual, user-friendly and easy, simple system, while the xbox360 just has hardcore written all over it. Microsoft won't be able to change that by releasing a few casual titles for their system. Xbox 360 is where gamers (not casual gamers) go to play their shooters and racing games online.

they could just accept that they should never of made any consoles and accept defeat/ i joke but they could just give them away with every wii sold that would help

Pack their bags and leave the building... that's my 1, my 2, my 3, my 4, basically my top 5

Nah honestly I don't really care as they're simply not my favorite company. Unreliable hardware, buying off companies / games and low amount of interesting games are the 3 main reasons. Thanks to the 360 I'm still waiting for my precious RPG's for on the PS3, which easily could have been released before on the PS3 or at the same time for that matter like with Last Remnant. But no... here we are... a year later, and still waiting for Eternal Sonata... without a clue of "when" it will release *sob*. So I'll be the last to give any advice about what they should do.

Other then #4 everyone of those would make them lose a lot of money, and being sales are up 40 something percent this year, I think they are doing ok ;)

People need to stop looking at it from a pure competition point of view, or at least stop looking at it as a winner take all kind of thing.

If all industries worked that way, every call company other then Toyota should just close down.

P.S. If they could do #4, they would have a long time ago ;)

Lets see how GTA4 performs on the 360 before we have this topic.

I wouldnt call it a crisis just yet.

@ The RealMafoo

On one hand, you make a good point, with your Toyota remark.
But on the other hand: think about SEGA.

Microsoft still has a gap of more than 6,6 billion dollars to fill, before its break even on their lossen (Xbox + Xbox 360 combined). And they need to broaden their market this generation to stand a chance in the next round of console wars.

Look, Xbox 1 was technicaly better than PS2, so with their 360, they could really convince gamers to make the switch. But now, PS3 is more future proof than 360 (Cell , blu-ray, swappable hdd...), so if they want to compete in the next round of console wars, they will have to have a wide base of satisfied users to make that transition. And that means, 60, 70 million users.

If they don't act now, and PS3, with its GTA4 and MGS4 bundles, it's blu-ray and it's superior end-of-year line-up, can create a gap, they've got no more ammo to turn the tide.

Sony has already turned the tide. They are winning by a large margin, and will sell far more consoles this generation then MS. That's a given.

But, MS will still make money, and built a large market base. They have learned a lot in these two attempts to make a console, and all the biggest issues have been experiences. Next time around they will get it right.

As far as the 6 billion in losses, they are the most profitable company in the world, and in the US, you pay about 50% taxes on profit. That 6 billion offset there earning, so they paid 3 billion less in taxes because of it. I am sure a good accountant can find far more reasons to mitigate those losses as well. So 6 billion in losses is really not 6 billion dollars lost.

The real thing that has to be done in this industry to be successful, is offer exclusive games that people want to play. If they want to play them, they have to have your console. MS has accomplished this.

In the end, it's all about the games. MS has done a great job of securing enough to make them viable in this market for a long time (something SEGA didn't do).