It's hard not to admire what Microsoft has done in this generation of consoles; from being the underdog last gen, to arguably, being the top dog this generation.
How did they do it? Well, with a lot of hard work, good timing and maybe a blunder or two from their fiercest rival (Sony). This is something former Microsoft and Xbox executive Robbie Bach talked about when he was a guest speaker at the Northwestern Entrepreneur Network event held in Seattle.
Bach claims that some of the Xbox 360's success could be attributed to Sony's blunders this generation of gaming. Sony's shortcomings helped Microsoft gain an advantage and avoid what happened to the original Xbox and PS2.
"Some of the success of Xbox was due to the fact that Sony did some really not so smart things. They mismanaged their 70 percent market share. It’s a long conversation. The transition to PlayStation 3 was really, really bad. And really hard. They mismanaged their partners, they mismanaged their cost structure. They made their next platform so complicated that developers couldn’t develop for it."
While the Xbox 360 got a year's headstart against the PS3, Sony didn't exactly counteracted with any immediacy in mind. heck, they released the PS3 at a highter price-point but with arguably the same graphical capablities and didn't really differentiate itself from the Xbox 360…this alone caused a bit of a stir among buyers and why they should even consider replacing their Xbox 360s.
It's also good to point out that most people think that Sony got a littile too sure of themselves –what with their steamrolling of SEGA, Nintendo and even Microsoft during the PS1 and PS2's heyday — that they might have assumed that brand recognition alone might have been enough to replicate their success with the PS3.
Let's just hope Sony has learned their lesson and implements what they've learned for the PS4.
Source: GeekWire
