Posted by Cody Nagel, 9 hours ago   
While Sony’s revenues increased this year, Microsoft’s share ended up decreasing in value likely due to decreased Xbox 360 hardware prices. This comes on the heels of Microsoft boasting and toasting themselves all over the gaming industry for their successful increase in unit sales of the 360 due to the price drop of the Arcade edition for $199.

While the 360 did gain ground on its rival Sony’s PS3. This is all attributed to the price drop. On the surface it seems like a good move, but underneath lies the truth that the current trend for Microsoft’s unit sales is; units sales up, profits down. Leaving it  up to software sales for continued economic prosperity. This is one area where Microsoft is no slouch. Gears of War 2 will easily go on to sell 5 million copies. Two new Halo games and continues high sales of third party titles almost assure success in 2009. The real question for Microsoft this year is not 09 itself, but rather can they sustain beyond.  

Competition has gotten very steep this year as Sony ups the ante with Killzone 2. From all impressions and reviews given so far, it seems as though Sony finally has an absolute powerhouse of a game on its hand. "Halo Killer" is a common statement heard in reviews and impressions. Also Sony has probably the biggest game of the year sitting in the training room brewing to what should be perfection. That’s right, God of War 3.

This year is beginning to shape up to be a very heavy hitting year in the HD console war. The stakes are higher than ever. Microsoft’s must hold of the huge onslaught of PS3 exclusive titles with its own triple A titles all while getting the next few years ready at the same time. It should be one hell of a ride.
 
http://gamingfront.net/article-20-Is-The-Xbox-360-in-Real-Trouble.html


I partially agree and partially disagree with the idea.. MS has a large user base so publishers are not going to abandon it.. secondly they are ready to spend money to get exclusives.. But at the same time PS3 user base is reasonably big now which can't be ignored and secondly Sony has a lot of first party development houses... whereas MS have killed most of its first party studios.

Oddly enough i 100% agree with you OP.

I think piracy has a larger role in 360 succes than price drop, at least in Latin America and Asia.

For all the noise about the Wii in 2006 and about Sony now, I suspect that Microsoft is the one in trouble.

It has positioned itself where it has nowhere to go.

The Arcade price drop was coupled with a push towards the expanded market and, sure, it worked a bit - but nowhere near as much as MS wanted. There are two problems there: first, that the Xbox brand image of heavycore shooters is not in the main appealing to the family market and second, that it isn't a Wii.

Ironically, perhaps the best thing MS could do would be to rebrand and relaunch the Arcade for that market. But if they did that, the numbers would show that they were losing both battles - the heavycore to Sony and the expanded to Nintendo. And there is no good way of spinning that when you are the cheapest console.

The flawed accounting logic and the damage control in the first paragraph means I can't take this seriously.

Sony is like a tree it keeps gorwing and only gets bigger. M$ is still young in this game to realize a great system takes time. They have one now but they dont have the experaince to keep the movement behind it.

Well i think the sony doom-mongering is ridiculous, but this could be pretty real

Nope, same rhetoric we heard this time last year however. As for Sony, Thursday is going to be very telling indeed.

Biggest game God of War 3?? It might be an awesome game but it's definitely not the biggest.

Do people realize that out of the entire EDD, the XBox brand was the highlight. While Zune sales were $100 million less. There is absolutely no way to get concrete information on how much money the XBox brand has lost or gained as MS does not give a detailed breakdown of the different products in the EDD.