Mike Bantick
Saturday, 22 December 2007 11:17
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
On the Microsoft front, we saw the highs of numerous AAA exclusive titles, to the lows of the “Red Ring of Death” saga. Quality issues circled like sharks around the Xbox 360, and for a time Microsoft ignored the rising hubbub of discontent.
With Microsoft marketing instead intent on riding the Gears of War success, building the hype for the upcoming
Halo 3 , touting the HDMI equipped Xbox 360 Elite and presenting keyboard attachments for Xbox Live chat facilities, it was a brave PR face that went public during the RRoD difficulties.
Many Xbox 360 devotees were getting the red ring lights indicating a hardware failure coming up consistently, some punters quoted as being on there sixth or seventh replacement Xbox 360.
Eventually, Microsoft acknowledged the issue, and made changes to the Xbox 360 hardware, at the same time altering the warrantee agreement to extend to three years the product replacement policy specifically for RRoD problems
The other major issue to hit Microsoft, were the inroads both Wii and PS3 were making upon sales, even with a year head start, the competition was catching up fast in many markets. To counteract, Microsoft introduced a couple of new Xbox 360 models, the Arcade (up against the Wii) and the Elite (up against the PS3) – at least, when it comes to Xbox 360, choice is still the name of the game.
While we touch on Microsoft, Vista failed to make an impact on the gaming market, nor did the play anywhere promise of LIVE, which has failed to be exploited by software to this point, Shadowrun being the most prominent, itself failing to capture gamer imagination.
Similarly the Vista only DirectX 10 was not compelling enough for gamers to make the jump from XP; games such as the much vaunted Crysis have fallen flat, sales scared off by system requirements.
