Microsoft's Silence at CES Could be the Start of a Tough Year for the Xbox

I hope no one here is thinking that this guy is objective (at least based on this article, haven't checked out his others). I think some discussion could be made based on some of the points he brings up though. For example, it isn't really clear to me that the 360 can "unseat the Playstation" (assuming the PS2 here, as I mentioned earlier) w/o adjusting their overall strategy a bit. They can appeal to the hardcore "cars and guns" crowd, which makes up a large percentage of gamers (particularly in NA), but that probably won't result in the type of sales MS may want.

 

They definitely seemed to invest quite a bit early on. For example, they aggressively went after Mistwalker (made up of former Square-Enix employees, as well as employees from other JRPG companies), funding both Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey (their Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy). Doesn't look like those moves have paid off though. I recall seeing a strong advertising push as well, but most of this occurred a while back. I can't recall seeing many moves from them in a while, not counting any smaller moves to "secure" exclusives (like Ninja Gaiden 2 or Infinite Undiscovery...if those are even exclusive). I'm not sure I'd say they've abandoned the region, but it seems to be of lesser importance to them now.

I wonder if they even bothered with Korea and Taiwan. I recall seeing some decent PS3 sales in those regions (given the markets), although I'm not sure if MS ever launched the 360 there (let alone pushed the system).

 

They launched the 80GB PS3 there since they had a VOD service up-and-running on the PS3 that needed the capacity. I think it was part of a partnership with a Korean company though, and not something set up by Sony (Sony isn't providing the service, at least not directly).

I'd guess that if Sony could ever actually put together a video download service, I don't think Korea would be more likely to receive the service first compared to the US (or Japan/Europe for that matter). I've given up on them doing this though. They've been working on it for years and haven't gotten anywhere it seems, despite the incredible advantages they have when compared to other companies. I thought it was interesting that Sony is now ready to distribute their TV shows using DivX, although I probably wouldn't put too much stock into that.

I'm not too worried about the other two, although I'd expect to hear some more details in the next month or so (already seeing in-game XMB pictures, although they're probably fake).

 

I'm sure it would lead to great profits for the game division, the music/video divisions of Sony, the electronics division at Sony, and possibly even lead to profits for other companies. Of course, it would require the divisions within Sony to actually talk to and cooperate with each other.

I always figured that if they did this, it would probably use a service that would hook up to multiple Sony products (not just the PS3 and/or PSP). I thought they would just extend Sony Connect, although they ended up killing that altogether (maybe all for the best). I sometimes wondered if perhaps they would just allow the PS3 to hook up to a 3rd party service, like iTunes or something, although I'm not sure how difficult that would be to setup. Either way, there are multiple ways of implementing something like this, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

I wouldn't necessarily expect it in the next firmware update; I'd just be happy that it came along sometime in 2008. I don't mind the frequent updates either. I'm assuming that those who are bothered by it are more bothered by the fact that there are numerous updates that don't really add much (at least in their mind).

 

I always felt as though Sony was in a unique and advantageous situation given that they made the hardware and software that people may want. But it seems to me like they've never actually taken advantage of that.

I think part of the reason Howard Stringer was put in charge was so that he could try to get the company to use its resources more efficiently. I guess maybe he's helped a little bit and things like this probably do take time (some negotiations may be required, particularly if some divisions have contracts with other companies), but I still think it is a huge waste on Sony's part. They did a good job of teaming up to push Blu-ray. The R&D department helped research the tech, the electronics department put out the hardware (including discs), the movie studios put out their content on the format, the games division pushed it in their console, etc. And what a surprise, this will probably earn Sony a LOT of money.

Oh well...guess the Rolly is a decent alternative to all that.