In a post-NPD interview, Aaron Greenberg, director of product management for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, reiterated Microsoft's belief that Xbox 360 will outsell PS3 on a worldwide basis this generation. The following are the excerpts from the interview, covering everything from the risks of being a first-mover to maintaining profitability and recent Japanese success. And of course, in Greenberg's style, a few jabs against rival PS3.
Note to readers: We also extended an invitation to Sony and Nintendo for post-NPD interviews, with no response.
On sustaining the sales boost following the price cut:
Our belief is that it will be absolutely sustainable going into the holiday, because the price drop is just one part of our holiday campaign. We're completely reinventing the Xbox 360 on November 19 with the launch of the New Xbox Experience, which will make the Xbox even more accessible. We're going to have our biggest and broadest lineup of games that we've ever had.
On PS3 offering a better value than Xbox 360 with more built-in goodies and free online:
People first and foremost are buying consoles for the games, and when it comes to games Xbox 360 is the number one platform--most titles, most blockbusters, most exclusives. If you want to play Gears of War 2, Lips or Fable 2, you'll get an Xbox. Then you add the fact that every major third party title this holiday is also coming out on Xbox 360. We are the system with great games, not to mention Xbox Live, Netflix and being half the price of PS3.
We're slowly removing the reasons to buy a PS3. It feels like we're coming to the point where we're really seeing that.
On the sales split between the Xbox 360 Arcade, Premium and Elite:
We don't break out that information. But the Arcade has done extremely well. I think you're seeing as we move into our fourth holiday a much more price-conscious buyer. Historically, the best-selling SKU has been the Xbox 360 with the 60GB hard drive.
On maintaining a profitable Xbox business:
The nice thing about our business is that it's a profitable business. We've sustained profitability for the whole year, and we continue to maintain a profitable business. We're seeing our live business grow. We're selling more software than ever before--our attach rate was 8.1 in September, not including Xbox Live Arcade. Those are great health indicators.
On the first-mover advantage:
The payoff of being the first console to launch this generation has been the ability to cost reduce and pass those benefits off to consumers. The fact that we're now half the price of PS3 and less than Wii, our competitors are unable to make price drops [Not that Wii even would need to at this point - ed]. Those are all benefits from launching first this generation.
On the "Jasper":
We don't ever comment on codenames and internal components and those types of things. We have a great box and people should buy with confidence.
On recent Japan success:
What's going on is that Xbox 360 is sold out in Japan. It's unbelievable, the demand we've had as a result of delivering great games. The fact that we've delivered blockbuster RPGs back-to-back along with the price drop in Japan has helped us sustain momentum in the market. We have a fantastic team doing business over there, and we've got great results after years and years of determination.
We're also working with third party partners like Namco Bandai and Square-Enix and a lot of the other big name publishers. They're looking to our platform to deliver their great Japanese RPGs as well as their global franchises.
On Europe's battlefield:
We've dropped the price twice in one year in Europe. As we've said, Europe is the battleground territory for us that we're prioritizing. A lot of the titles like You're In the Movies and Lips--those titles go over really well in Europe. Those are types of games they're looking for.
We're continuing to outsell the PS3 across all of Europe [he says week-to-week, but not yet for a full month straight - ed] to extend our lead in Europe. The Chart-Track/GfK equivalent that we're getting shows that we're outselling PS3 not only in the top markets, but across all of Europe total.
We expect Xbox 360 on a global basis this holiday will sell more units than PS3, in Europe and North America specifically. And as Don Mattrick said at E3, over the entire generation we expect to outsell PlayStation 3's install base. A lot of that will be the result of maintaining our price leadership and our game catalog.