Wasnt the reason for the one year-head start release of the Xbox360 was MS plan to dominate this gen?

it doesn't matter if they will come 1st, 2nd or 3rd - if they can make money, keep developers and publishers interested in making games for their current and future consoles this is already a succes. gamecube was 3rd last gen and yet nintendo still was making more money than sony.

@V-rock

No one in the industry was counting on the Wii´s success..that´s why I say MS would´ve had a real chance, since the "599 US Dollars" set Sony back far more than they imagined.

No, the Xbox is too important for a lot of other projects

Xbox Live, Zune marketplace (pushing VoD), Windows Mobile (Live anywhere), Windows Live Messenger are all connected in a certain way to the Xbox.

Plus the Xbox brand is getting bigger and bigger with every console sold.

I think, MS is here to stay.

If the next console is profitable, I don't see any reason why Microsoft would bow out regardless of what place they are in terms on total consoles sold.

Money is really nice but it tastes bad if you try to eat it.

I think we've got a much better chance of losing the Playstation brand, than the Xbox brand, over the next two generations.

It may seems weird, but I don't think their goal is really to make money, but more, as nen-suer said earlier, to prevent sony from installing a media hub in every living room that would be a threat for PC/Windows. Just look how much the iPod/iPhone bother them.

Fight Sony first, keep the monopoly on home multimedia, then make money out of it (a lot of money) later.

Good thing for Sony is that Bluray is doing well, MS wil have to wait next gen to include it, and second good thing is that they sell almost equally now. MS is not destroying them, yet.

Very few companies have been able to fight against MS, let's see how Sony will do.
And I predict that if they don't make a real come back (price cut + great games would do it IMHO), next gen MS will crush them.

I think we've got a much better chance of loosing the playstation console under Sony than we do the XBOX under microsoft . But if we're talking about brands alone then you've got to be kidding . No other console could have survived at the PS3's price point and Sony owes that to the playstation brand , yes the XBOX brand has increased significantly in strength but that's due to measures that MS has taken the force the XBOX on the consumer (the Arcade for example).

How is it possible that the expensive PS3 is able to sell within range of the 360 despite the fact that even the PSP cost more than a new 360 ? if the siutation was reversed there is no way the 360 would be able to sell on par.

That's a decade + worth of history mate.

If Apple had a choice between buying Playstation and everything it represents (I.P's , development resources etc) or the XBOX brand I think we all know what the obvious chocie would be.

I don't think it matters wether MS comes in first next gen or the one after that. The only thing that is important is that they break a profit. If they manage to make profit dropping out would be stupid from a business standpoint.

They'll be happy this gen I think, even if overall (i.e. total expenditure to date from the original Xbox) they haven't exactly raked in cash in mountains yet. This gen for MS is about moving from having a foothold to being a contender - which they've done okay on.

Next gen is the key, though.

If they still end up behind others will they quit? Assuming the division is profitable, assuming they remain dominant in US, particularly if they have a strong presence in the heart of US households, delivering content, etc. in addition to games, then no. That would not make sense. They'd settle for US and continue to chip away internationally - while taking some lumps for failing to make their goal of being dominant after three generations.

Looking at the global marketshare split I think MS would need to see a massive failure next gen, with the collapse of their US stronghold and the emergence of a true victor in the war to 'own the living room' to ever seriously consider whether to throw in the towel or not.