Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 07 April 2008 13:17
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
An interesting article has appeared on the Internet claiming the Xbox
360 is ‘on the skids’, quoting one retailer who says ‘The Xbox 360 is
dead’. Really?
Australian journalist, publisher and proprietor of 4SquareMedia,
David W Richards, has conducted a survey of “10 Australian retail chains who operate over 2,000 stores” which suggests the Xbox 360 has lost favour with retailers.
Mike Bantick, iTWire games writer, covered Richard’s story earlier today, in an
article called ‘The Xbox 360 is dead’.
Richards says the
survey, conducted by 4SquareMedia publications Channel News and SmartHouse, shows that gaming software will be the big driver of consoles sales in 2008.
Unfortunately this is not a big revelation, for console sales are always about the software – no matter what else your games console can – or can’t do – if it has no software, i.e. games, it won’t sell. The Nintendo Gamecube had vastly fewer titles available for it than the original Xbox and the PS2, and likewise sold far fewer units despite still having some well known Nintendo original titles.
Then Richards goes on to quote retailers who say that “PS3 was selling well because it had a Blu ray (sic) drive and that the Nintendo Wii was appealling (sic) to both women and "Kids" (sic) because of it’s (sic) interactive capability.”
A Blu-ray drive on the PS3 can be used to sell two types of software – games and movies (if you count movies as ‘software’), while all consoles are interactive whether you are waving around a Wii remote, operating a steering wheel or pressing buttons on a games controller.
Richards quotes retailers who “claimed that the Xbox 360 as a brand had suffered from their "Ring of Death" problems in 2007 and that consumers did not see the Microsoft gaming console as "Value" when compared to the PS3 or the Nintendo Wii.”
That’s odd – the Xbox 360 comes in three packages, priced low to high, and still has the widest selection of next-generation games on the market, surpassing what is individually available for the PS3 and the Wii.
As for the Red Ring of Death – Microsoft fully acknowledged this issue last year, and gave Xbox 360 owners an unprecedented 3 year warranty – something that every manufacturer on the planet should offer as a minimum, rather than the wussy one year warranties consumers are regularly stiffed with, probably even by other parts of Microsoft itself in their hardware division.
So, what do the two retailers that Richards quote in the survey have to say when they slammed the Xbox 360? And what does Microsoft Australia have to say in response? Please read onto page 2.
