A crumbling tower: Sony lays siege to the 360's weak spots

Judo: the first xbox only gained momentum after dramatic price cuts.

This has almost caught it in total sales in less time than that with none in the USA.

Such a cut this holiday could make a big difference.

They had a year head start so lots of their early exclusives were games that would have been multiplatform had the PS3 been around

Which it wasn't because Sony missed their original launch date. Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero and PGR3 were all first party anyway and we have only seen one sequel to those so far. First Party wise Sony have actually delivered very little of note, probably why Phil Harrison is no longer employed. Heavenly Sword and LAIR were a gigantic waste of money and effort.

something fishy wrote:Judo: the first xbox only gained momentum after dramatic price cuts.

Wasn't that after 3 months or something? I remember getting some free games at the time.

Sony have a 300,000 lead for 2008 according to NPD

The release of MGS4 the biggest exclusive they have and that is all they managed, 360 could swallow that entire lead in December alone and more like last year. Momentum is all well and good if you have any, PS3 sales have fallen back since MGS4 in both Japan and the US so they don't actually have any, sales have gone down.

$ilva $hadow wrote:The only fair point there I'd say is about charging for Xbox Live. It's a huge profit pool for Microsoft from such a small amount of people, however they're locking more people out from online than they are serving. No matter how much I'm offered, I simply will not pay for subscriptions, I hate them. I hate paying for online games, I hate paying for access to Xbox Live Gold and I stopped after two subscriptions. I couldn't justify it since I wasn't playing online religiously. For online play on COD4, I use the PS3. There's people out there, a lot of them that simply won't pay. That is the biggest thing they need to solve. Gaming is bringing people closer to together since we pay a subscription for internet anyway, the PS3 offers it for free and I get my mates online sometimes to play with me. With the 360 I'm now locked out however even when I had XBL Gold....my mates simply wouldn't pay either.

This is a great point.

Something like Free LIVE would make it far more accessable to people. The PS3 could preove the eventual online winner just because it is free.

Judoscar wrote:Momentum is what I think the "article" was pointing to. Something the 360 is severely lacking.

That's fair enough, but some of the points made have nothing to do with that, and smack of meaningless MS-bashing. The comments about the UI conveniently ignore every aspect except the Avatars. The hard drive comments are ignorant, and the connectivity argument is flawed - do enough people really use PSP-to-PS3 to give the PS3 a significant advantage?

It's weird - there definitely seems to be an industry trend towards praising Sony, even when its machine was trailing in third place - almost as if there's a collective need for it to do well.

And I notice the 'paying for potential' argument got another airing from Sony last week. Which is wearing very thin for a console well into its second year on the market.

interesting article, but ms dominated the ps3 for a year, and while the ps3 is gathering steam now, the 360 still has a lot of puff left imo.

Rik wrote:~~interpretation of figures~~

Fair enough, but I don't agree. I think that is all individual interpretation of figures. I think we shall have to agree to disagree.

You think MS has the momentum over Sony.
I think Sony has the momentum over MS.
Nintendo don't give a gooseberry fool.

Judoscar wrote:

Rik wrote:~~interpretation of figures~~

Fair enough, but I don't agree. I think that is all individual interpretation of figures. I think we shall have to agree to disagree.

You think MS has the momentum over Sony.
I think Sony has the momentum over MS.
Nintendo don't give a gooseberry fool.

I don't think MS have momentum over Sony at all, MS have basically done nothing this year of note and yet even with MGS4, HDDVD dying and GT5P the PS3 only managed to outsell 360 by a tiny amount in the last NPD. A well timed price cut could destroy the PS3 2008 advantage in one month, the Jasper board which is cheaper is almost upon us and a hard drive that is now 3 times bigger is included at a price that Sony can't get near. US consumers are price sensitive like no other and the old 80% of PS2 sales were at $199 or less is what MS will be looking too.

Japan was always going to be a dead duck for MS but Europe is still to play for, after all they still lead the PS3 according to their own figures by a million units. However just relying on US content which has done well in the UK simply doesn't work for mainland Europe which is why localisation has been stepped up this year for the casual titles.

The PS3 still has a long way to go. I'm not sure about the 360, but people are still waiting to buy a PS3, they just need an excuse to splash out 300 quid with a game good enough to go with or they need a price cut. The PS3 still has a strong brand amazingly, mostly due to public ignorance. The industry is also sucking on Sonys filthy cock. They feel the need to praise them for nothing. God knows why but as soon as there's something to flame the 360 for, they're quick to jump onto it.

What a bloody awful article. It has some valid points in it about Xbox's proprietary formats on hard drives etc but it's written in such a transparently "the PS3 is better" manner that I can't take it seriously. Microsoft are doing exciting things with the Xbox to push growth (the whole autumn update, Xbox Primetime as a whole new genre of mass-multiplayer quizzes for example) and the library of upcoming games in these last 2 quarters of the year make me still glad to this day that I've got it instead of a PS3.

The authors should have a read of the latest EDGE, which has a good feature on all the new stuff that's coming up to extend the Xbox's markets etc.

Judoscar wrote:

something fishy wrote:Judo: the first xbox only gained momentum after dramatic price cuts.

Wasn't that after 3 months or something? I remember getting some free games at the time.

and again with about 18 i think. I got mine in 03 after the second cut.

Rik wrote:I don't think MS have momentum over Sony at all, MS have basically done nothing this year of note and yet even with MGS4, HDDVD dying and GT5P the PS3 only managed to outsell 360 by a tiny amount in the last NPD. A well timed price cut could destroy the PS3 2008 advantage in one month, the Jasper board which is cheaper is almost upon us and a hard drive that is now 3 times bigger is included at a price that Sony can't get near. US consumers are price sensitive like no other and the old 80% of PS2 sales were at $199 or less is what MS will be looking too.

The 360 did have a price cut in the US last month and despite this the (much more expensive) PS3 still sold more.

The big game that MS are relying on this year is Gears of War 2 and it is sure to sell huge numbers but I don't see it shifting that many consoles as all the Gears of War fans own a 360 already.

Sat: people would have known it was a clearance and the new model was coming. It was not a proper price cut across the range (which is coming).

Even then it sold just a little less than PS3, with people no doubt holding off for the new mode. Hardly seems fatal to me.

satriales wrote:

Rik wrote:I don't think MS have momentum over Sony at all, MS have basically done nothing this year of note and yet even with MGS4, HDDVD dying and GT5P the PS3 only managed to outsell 360 by a tiny amount in the last NPD. A well timed price cut could destroy the PS3 2008 advantage in one month, the Jasper board which is cheaper is almost upon us and a hard drive that is now 3 times bigger is included at a price that Sony can't get near. US consumers are price sensitive like no other and the old 80% of PS2 sales were at $199 or less is what MS will be looking too.

The 360 did have a price cut in the US last month and despite this the (much more expensive) PS3 still sold more.

The big game that MS are relying on this year is Gears of War 2 and it is sure to sell huge numbers but I don't see it shifting that many consoles as all the Gears of War fans own a 360 already.

By that logic Resistance won't be shifting many PS3s either.


What will happen is that Sony and Microsoft will pump up their advertising and Gears 2 and Resistance 2 will sell quite a few systems.

$ilva $hadow wrote:

satriales wrote:

Rik wrote:I don't think MS have momentum over Sony at all, MS have basically done nothing this year of note and yet even with MGS4, HDDVD dying and GT5P the PS3 only managed to outsell 360 by a tiny amount in the last NPD. A well timed price cut could destroy the PS3 2008 advantage in one month, the Jasper board which is cheaper is almost upon us and a hard drive that is now 3 times bigger is included at a price that Sony can't get near. US consumers are price sensitive like no other and the old 80% of PS2 sales were at $199 or less is what MS will be looking too.

The 360 did have a price cut in the US last month and despite this the (much more expensive) PS3 still sold more.

The big game that MS are relying on this year is Gears of War 2 and it is sure to sell huge numbers but I don't see it shifting that many consoles as all the Gears of War fans own a 360 already.

By that logic Resistance won't be shifting many PS3s either.


What will happen is that Sony and Microsoft will pump up their advertising and Gears 2 and Resistance 2 will sell quite a few systems.

I agree that Resistance won't sell that many console either. If you liked Resistance 1 then you've probably got a PS3, if you like Gears 1 then you've probably already got a 360.
If you didn't buy a console for those two games then why would you buy a console for the sequels?

I think Fable 2 could shift more 360's than Gears 2.

I dont think either console has any real system sellers coming up in the vein of GTA or Halo but both consoles will see steady sales as more people look to join the latest generation of consoles. I think the real driving force behind further sales will be when price cuts happen. £150 or less is what most people are willing to pay for a machine. Oh and MS getting the arcade pack to £150 doesnt count. It needs to be the hard drive equipped model.

Of course we all know the Wii will clean up anyway

Took their time, didn't they? It's been like 3 years now.

satriales wrote:

$ilva $hadow wrote:

satriales wrote:

Rik wrote:I don't think MS have momentum over Sony at all, MS have basically done nothing this year of note and yet even with MGS4, HDDVD dying and GT5P the PS3 only managed to outsell 360 by a tiny amount in the last NPD. A well timed price cut could destroy the PS3 2008 advantage in one month, the Jasper board which is cheaper is almost upon us and a hard drive that is now 3 times bigger is included at a price that Sony can't get near. US consumers are price sensitive like no other and the old 80% of PS2 sales were at $199 or less is what MS will be looking too.

The 360 did have a price cut in the US last month and despite this the (much more expensive) PS3 still sold more.

The big game that MS are relying on this year is Gears of War 2 and it is sure to sell huge numbers but I don't see it shifting that many consoles as all the Gears of War fans own a 360 already.

By that logic Resistance won't be shifting many PS3s either.


What will happen is that Sony and Microsoft will pump up their advertising and Gears 2 and Resistance 2 will sell quite a few systems.

I agree that Resistance won't sell that many console either. If you liked Resistance 1 then you've probably got a PS3, if you like Gears 1 then you've probably already got a 360.
If you didn't buy a console for those two games then why would you buy a console for the sequels?

I think Fable 2 could shift more 360's than Gears 2.

I don't agree with that entirely. I think Gears of War 2 could shift more XBOX360's, just not as many as the original did.

I also think that Resistance 2 will shift more PlayStation3 units for the simple reason the userbase is still growing and gamers may find it the right time to upgrade to diversify.

As soon as I read that part about Home being silver bullet and LBP planet being a huge title amongst casuals the article lost any credit I might have given it.