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Microsoft Confident of Second Place Finish This Gen
By Tom Ivan
September 5, 2008
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"I'm not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo"
Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, has said he expects the Xbox 360 to secure second place in the current generation console war.
"We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony," Mattrick told Business Week.
He made the comments as Microsoft announced it was slashing the price of all three of its Xbox 360 models in the US, having recently done so in Japan also. As a result of the move, the entry level Xbox 360 Arcade is now priced at $199, making it the cheapest of the current generation of consoles on the market.
However, Mattrick said he was less confident of the Xbox 360 catching this generation’s current market leader, Nintendo’s Wii.
"I'm not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo," he said.
On Thursday Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich told Edge that Microsoft's price cuts should have Sony "concerned". While he didn’t doubt the long-term success of Sony’s PS3, he did forecast that "the Xbox 360 will win another holiday season against the PS3 in North America."
Divinch expects a 20-30 percent short-term jump in Xbox 360 unit sales thanks to the price cuts, while Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told us that he thinks the price reduction will "spark an increase of 15-20 percent in unit sales over the next 12 months".
"Nintendo need not worry about Microsoft, or anyone else for that matter," Divnich added. "...Nintendo has so much wiggle room on the Wii’s pricing that they will never be afraid of a competitor trying to use price as a differentiating feature.”
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A year ago, MS was sure the 360 would beat the Wii. In another year, they might well be issuing a press release crowing that they are positive they will beat the latest handheld wonder from Tiger Electronics.
Point: Take corporate shills with a grain of salt.
Brian
www.brianwoods.com
Microsoft isn't going to take 2nd place. Look at the guy's pic.. his smile is soo fake. In his head he's thinking "who am i kidding.. xbox 2nd place ? ;*(..."
Shh! Shh! They gonna report it and gonna delete your comment. It happened before. Mattrick is untouchable as any Senior VP in this business, you know.
I keed, of course.
Mostly.
I'm very curious to see what games such as LBP will do for Sony. There's definitely a lot of titles to look forward to on the system... and if their PS3s won't suddenly display strange overheating problems like their laptops, they seem to be suffering from less problems versus the 360. Ironically though, as previous posts suggests, red rings have actually increased sales... kind of a strange phenomenon, if you ask me.
Yea, "consumer vicious circle" I said below, but "Consumer Stockholm Syndrome" might sound better :)
You, know, the "psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker" (via Wikipedia). Dean Takahashi mentions in his article (and upcoming book) on the 360 that the "RROD evangelist" Chris Szarek had FOUR 360s before he lost his temper. Some people just won't learn from their mistakes.
Check:
http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/xbox-360-defects-an-inside-history-of-...
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/05/01/the_unluckiest_/
Typical Microsoft talk...he gets paid to talk whatever he is told! Analysts? Analysts get paid somehow too...they say whatever they were paid to say. No doubt the sales of the 360 will go up in a short run. Long run? Who knows. Lets see what market decides.
The XBOX will finish 3rd. Remember how it was first one to 10 million wins this gen? MS are fighting a losing battle and they know it.
Playstation 3 is obviously going to finish a very distant third place in terms of worldwide sales.
Xbox 360 will at least finish with a strong second place finish in terms of worldwide sales.
There is absolutely no doubt that the price drop to $199 and $299 will cause the Xbox 360 to once regain the sales lead in North America...that much is guaranteed.
Xbox 360 outsold the Wii when Halo 3 was released last holiday season. Considering that Gears of War 2 will be available this holiday season, and the Xbox 360 is so much less expensive, the Xbox 360 is definitely going to be the item that people want to get!
Also, the demand for the Wii has really dropped quite a bit in Japan. And the Xbox 360 actually outsold the Playstation 3 by a ratio of 5:2 recently in Japan.
Europe is also a market where the Xbox 360 continues to outsell the Playstation 3 by a wide margin each month, ever since Microsoft dropped the price in Europe.
Xbox 360 has the strongest lineup of games, made up of the largest number of games in every genre. Multi-platform games are better on the Xbox 360 in terms of graphics, online features, and controller features. So, it will be interesting to see what happens with the Xbox 360 vs the Wii now that "price" is no longer a key advantage for the Wii.
After all, the $199 Arcade version of Xbox 360 comes with a 512MB Memory Card capable of storing plenty of Xbox Live Arcade games and saving all your games. So, people who previously wanted a Wii will now be in a position where they say "Do I spend $250 on the Wii, or do I spend $200 on the Xbox 360 and use the extra $50 to buy a couple Platinum Hits like Elder Scrolls 4: Game of the Year Edition and Call of Duty 2."
Xbox 360 Arcade will win that war every time!
Viral marketing if I ever did see it. Good thing Ozzman smacked down your entire rant with the facts.
You are obviously an MS employee attempting to manipulate opinion.
"Also, the demand for the Wii has really dropped quite a bit in Japan. And the Xbox 360 actually outsold the Playstation 3 by a ratio of 5:2 recently in Japan."
If you look at this site more closely, mainly the article posted earlier today:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/japan-ds-top-fourth-week-running
you'll see that the Wii outsold the PS3 3.6:1 and the Xbox 11.5:1 this passed week. If you read these Japan sales articles ever week, you'll see this isn't an isolated occurance, but has been that way for many months. If their is a decline in Wii demand in Japan, as you claim, the sales charts don't reflect that, at least versus the other consoles. Unless you mean overall sales interest, in which case I can't really comment on that because i'm too lazy to look at the last 20 times they posted these weekly sales figures to see if the total # has decreased. If someone wanted to know for sure, they easily could.
Also the 5:2 outselling was only 1 week, and coincided with a major title release. I wouldn't put much stock in 1 week, when you look at the number of YEARS PS3 has been beating Xbox in Japan consecutively.
"Europe is also a market where the Xbox 360 continues to outsell the Playstation 3 by a wide margin each month, ever since Microsoft dropped the price in Europe."
That depends if you include the UK in your definition of "Europe." The Xbox sells well in the UK, but not as good in the rest of Europe, where the PS3 sells better.
"Xbox 360 Arcade will win that war every time!"
That's a pretty bold statement. I know a few people, who recently purchased Wiis, knowing an Xbox price cut was coming, that would argue that point. They have no idea what Elder Scrolls 4 or Call of Duty 2 are, but they know exactly what Wii Fit and Mario Kart are. Different people like different types of games.
@KIm_Naroz
I don't think that if the PS3 finishes in third that it will be THAT distannt.
Well, yes, it should regain the sales lead on a month to month basis over SONY, but it has not lost the total US sales lead to Sony yet, not by a large margin (5+ million lead last check). I don't think it will take over the US sales lead over the Wii though.
The 360 had a great month in Japan last month and due to the system being completely sold out those sales have dropped so it'll be interesting to see what happens when systems are well stocked.
I was unaware the the 360 has been selling more than the PS3 in Europe, I thought it was the opposite. Are those NPD numbers you're referring to?
Yes the 360 has the most games (its been out longer with a larger install base than PS3) multiplatform games USED to be better on the 360 in almost every aspect to include graphics, but that trend as been slowly dying now that developers are getting somewhat better suited with PS3 hardware and some developers are actually developing on a PC based system then "porting" to each system so multiplatform games typically are identical when it comes to features, graphics, control, so on and so forth on each system.
The Arcade actually comes with a 256 MB memory card (and what's with people continually stating you can save plenty of live arcade comes on a 256mb memory card? It depends on what games you buy). I don't know if Wii purchasers are really buying the Wii because of the price as much as the hype/control mechanism/popularity/elmo level fad-ism. I really don't think there will be a significant change in Wii sales after this. 360 sales should improve moderately, and holiday this year for 360 may or may not surpass their awesome holiday last year, but it'll be good (don't know if they will beat the Wii for the holiday).
They don't count replacement consoles as sales, they use the official NPD numbers who track console sales at the retail level. The system has been out longer, it has sold more systems than PS3, simple as that. By no means does that mean Sony can't catch MS. You never know, the PS3 with appropriate price cuts over the next 1-2 years, blu-ray (possibly) becoming more of a standard similar to regular DVD players, it could take off. I'm not betting on it (digital distribution/lack of insentive for consumers to upgrade for a minimal to moderate increase in quality) could really hurt blu-ray (why would sony offer movie downloads on their blu-ray player game system if they were so confident in the blu-ray format, aren't they cannibalizing blu-ray sales?).
It took me 14 hours to download a 9.5gb game. Digital Distribution is years away from even starting to offer a realistic alternative to physical media.
You need to get a faster internet connection. I get about 1.2mb/s on my 360, and that speed, it would take 2.702 hours (I did the math). Don't use your latent internet speed as an argument toward DD not being a viable medium.
Don't think that they count replacement consoles as sales -- I said people buy a second (maybe third) 360 to play on while the first one is on repair. It may sound weird but heard this logic several times. Consider it as some kinda 'consumer vicious circle'.
Yeah, that logic is weird. I have two 360s, (one for me, one for wife, she plays halo 3 and we won't play split screen). I have purchased 3 or so total (picked up an elite day one). But I was lucky when my 360 died cause I had a spare 360, I wouldn't have purchased another one though while I was waiting, that's just stupid.
"We will sell more consoles this generation than Sony,"
Agreed. Considering that the average customer buys 2-3 Xbox 360s because of the failure rate.
Of course we'll never know the numbers. Well done MS.
(Btw I'm sick of these console war reports from either side.)
Agreed!
The whole console war of "We will outsell them." garbage is just so old now.
I will never buy a 360 again. because I have had too many failures with them and I am a casual gamer at that... be lucky if I play a few hours a week. My past 360's made it 1 year a peice no more no less, if they are considering sells being failures then its completely inaccurate. They Should count one as a sale not the 2-3 they replace your one with a sale