Xbox 360 exec says consoles were “neck and neck” until aggressive Euro price-cutting

Microsoft’s group product manager for Xbox 360 Aaron Greenberg has stated that Xbox 360 and PS3 were “neck and neck” in sales terms until Microsoft’s aggressive European hardware price cutting lead to a significant sales increase in the region.

“While we had a pretty large lead – around five million plus in the US over PS3 – we were very neck and neck with Sony heading into this year in Europe,” Greenberg told G4TV. “Now, we ended the year with more than a million unit lead over PS3 in Europe, conservatively an eight million units global lead.

“We think now we’re starting to hit that sweet spot of the generation where Sony was with the PS2 and sold 75 per cent of their consoles. What we have focused on is making sure that we have the biggest and broadest third party games line-up and that we have as many exclusive games and exclusive content as possible.

“We never had a Resident Evil game so we wanted to have that. We never had Grand Theft Auto day-and-date. We didn’t have Final Fantasy. So we’ve added all the biggest franchises, such as Tekken. These are franchises that were frankly, built on the PlayStation platform. Making sure that we have all those games on our system is important.”

Greenberg went on to add that gaming has fortunately so far fared well amidst the global credit crunch – though he went to great lengths to make it clear he doesn’t believe Sony is enjoying the same benefits.

“What’s very fortuitous for us is that, as a category, video games have done pretty well,” he added. “We think that we’re one of those industries that consumers are staying in for entertainment. ‘We’, by the way – that’s us and Nintendo. Both the Wii and the Xbox 360 are really the two big winners. Actually, the only two winners right now if you look at holiday sales year over year.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/32907/Greenberg-360-pulling-away-from-PS3-in-Europe

Which mean, by a process of elimination, that PlayStation3 is a LOSER. By losers. For losers.

http://www.xboxer.tv/2009/01/greenberg_attacks_xbox_360_pul.html

This guy has been really talkative these past few weeks.

Time to get out the "Wii60" billboards again?

Sucking up to Nintendo again. Isn't this the same guy who said Wii owners would eventually "graduate" to the Xbox 360?

These guys really talk a lot of shit.

It's pretty clear at this point that Microsoft is trying to put even more hurt over Sony's financial trouble. They know Sony is in a cage right now, so they might as well take the chance to make a few jabs.

Neck and neck? They were getting hammered until they reduced the 360 to less than half the price of the ps3....

"Isn't this the same guy who said Wii owners would eventually "graduate" to the Xbox 360?"

Yes, the very same....but you know PR people from all companies like to flip-flop a lot.

I believe both were hovering around the same sales figure...

That point in the PS2's life was when the whole industry had accepted that PS2 was the way to go in terms of software support. That isn't going to happen with the 360, especially not as the recession hurts expensive titles more than little ones.