I'm of the opinion it's NOT very successful, in the same way PS3 is NOT very sucessful, at least not yet. However, imo it's current successes can be put down to:

1- Definately the one year head start...
2- Linked to the one year head start; Live. If you have friends that are already on Live, you're gonna buy the console that has Live and your friends
3- Halo
4- Gears of War
5- Cheaper than HD competitor
6- Easy to develop for
7- MS giving up on PC gaming (I daily shed a tear for Ensemble Studios... OK maybe not, but I loved AOE)

1. Relatively easy to develop, powerful machine. This meant they could release early and better still get the incredible content like Oblivion 6 months out from release, Gears of War 12 months out and Halo 3 22 months out from launch and continually get 'free' exclusives like the powerful Left 4 Dead franchise which has sold better than Sony's recent shooters. In addition to this, because the machine is so well balanced it made a more powerful machine on paper look weak by comparison in multiplatform games, so it stole the one thing Sony paid a lot of money to get, their performance advantage.

2. Early launch. They got a decent start and it wasn't that many sold but it enabled them to be the early primary system for development and to set the tone of the entire generation. It enabled them to get a head start with the important online, shooter, and western RPG markets.

3. Xbox Live. Its simply the best online service, arguably anywhere though I will stick to consoles here. It took PSN a long time to even catch up to Xbox Lives launch features and in the meantime Microsoft gained a large online audience, especially the hardcore online players. Being able to play with your friends has been the shield which has kept the PS3 at bay in the U.S.

4. Hardware price. Hey it was cheaper, and that was when there was little HDTV adoption or content to justify Blu Ray on the PS3. Good call Microsoft. It didn't make people buy Xbox 360 when they saw the PS3 was too expensive, Gears of War did that. It simply opened the choice up to people who were disapointed with the launch price of the PS3.

5. Gears of War/Oblivion/Year one lineup. They had some pretty awesome games in Gears of War 1, Oblivion etc. These were the games which made the Xbox 360 a viable alternative to the PS3 at launch. People could have waited, stretched to buy a PS3 at launch with few games or a cheaper Xbox 360 with two-three awesome games. A lot chose the 360 and thats important to note.

6. Halo 3, Goes without saying why really.

7. PC/360 port friendliness. In the age of the multiplatform its more important that your system can easily port between architectures. In this case its given them a lot of free exclusives they would have otherwise not got. It also allowed developers to be swayed by a timed exclusive PC/360 with the port coming to the PS3 later.

8. Financial strength of Microsoft. It let them try a lot of things like in Japan and support a lot of development which may/may not have come off. It also allowed them to continually advertise their system without worry. I believe the PS3 went almost a year without a decent advertisement campaign for example.

9. Luck, yes they've had some. The Wii wasn't a core gamer monster like predicted and the PS3 was a foot in mouth disaster from a PR perspetive and more which I won't list.

10. Persistance. Good things come to those who try and they did try so very hard. They were also the most forward looking company in terms of the development climate and the nature of the current port everything mindset.

1. One-year headstart

2. Has always been cheaper then PS3

3. Dominates American market

4. Xbox Live

5. Halo/Gears/other exclusives

6. Huge 3rd party support


I can only think of 6 reasons

One thing I forgot: It's Microsoft. Nobody.....NOBODY else would still be in business after some of the moves they've made. Having limitless money helped offset losing money on each console, losing a billion in repairs, funding exclusive dlc, and paying for me to keep quiet about my Bill Gates sex photos. They've taken a hit to become one of the big players in the video game world. It's working, though.

1- For the US it's the fact that they got a got console from their own soil.
2- The lower price, or seemingly lower price (which benefit is almost gone now)
3- Same games with same graphics as the PS3, possibly the top reason for the casual teenage gamer
4- Xbox Live
5- Exclusive games: Shooters, mainly Halo and GeOW
6- Exclusive games: WRPG, Fable, Mass Effect, TES (temporarily) (maybe not for most but this was my top reason)

EDIT: I also think that succes means more succes, the xbox 1 did ok and people who bought a PS2 lastgen saw that they didnt have to fear to miss out on multiplats if they got a 360.

One year headstart
$199 price.

Those two were the only things they needed to sell more than the PS3 because stealing exclusives didnt help them.

I'm rather sure that if games like GTA:VC and GTA:SA hadn't come to the xbox 1 on a later date then the 360 wouldn't have been as succesful. I'm convinced that it was the knowledge that the 360 wouldnt miss out on games like GTA4 made the 360 have a better start then the original xbox. So stealing exclusives does help, you just dont notice it right away, but Final Fantasy fans who got a PS3 because they had to for FF13 might get a Xbox nextgen now that FF has gone multiplat.

I'm sure many PS3 and 360 owners reget their choice atleast a little, not that they hate the console that they got but with all the exclusives going multiplat from both sides I'm sure people wished they knew this in advanced.

Is it stealing if you buy it?

Seriously, though.  I think companies came to the Xbox 360 because of the install base and the fact that 360 gamers buy a shitload of games.  I doubt they've actually had to pay Capcom, Namco, etc. to come to the console.

How is increasingly being the last place console (it seems pretty clear now that the only reason the PS3 wasn't ahead is price) a mark of distinction? Last week the DS, Wii, PS3 and PSP outold the 360 in all regions (well the PSP was behind in NA but 60k ahead in Japan).

I look at playing the 360, basically, like playing on a really low end PC. Basically playing on what was considered mid range in 2006 (you know, a low ghz core duo chip with a 3700 series ATI board) is more or less the same as playing on a 360. This was fine in 2005, but things are starting to look pretty dated.

I didn't mind the 360 back in 2006 when a PC that was significantly better would run me a thousand dollars or more. But today you can put together a PC that can smoke the 360 graphically for around 500 bucks (less then the cost of a 360+250gb HD+99 wireless + paying for online play). As a bonus, that 500 dollar box is a PC too for everything else you want to do. You can even use the 360 controller with most multi plat games if that's your thing and get achievements from Windows Live that count towards the same gamerscore (without paying 50 bucks a year).

Yes by getting rid of my 360 I do miss out on a few games Microsoft artificially keeps from the PC (about 1 good game a year lately) but really, Fable 2 isn't worth keeping a console over.

I'll be getting a superior version of Mass Effect 2 tomorrow, Ill get Alan Wake on the PC and pretty much every other big game this year that is "360 console exclusive" on the vastly superior PC platform.

High quality console only games that still push the limits like Uncharted 2, God of War 2, GT 5 and the rest? I need the PS3 for that.

Didn't Sony take as big of a hit paying you off for those Krazy Ken in the sauna with 3 PS3s photos?