Microsoft recently announced their price cuts on the Xbox 360, effective today, but what is motivating them? Microsoft’s not going to make much additional money by passing off the savings to the customer but they will, more than likely, sell a bunch of great new Xbox 360‘s to a new crowd of gamer.
Motivation? Sony.
“I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” says Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Indeed, Nintendo is likely to run away with the lead in the current generation of console gaming, leaving Microsoft and Sony to battle for second place. (businessweek)
Who would have thought Sony and Microsoft would be battling out this generation for second place while Nintendo breezes through with their Wii console and a handful of games with mediocre game reviews? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. If you saw this coming and you’re not on the marketing or project planning for one of these console makers you better prep your resume!
The battle isn’t cooling, Microsoft drops their price to compete with their big competitor Sony which also brings it closer to the price tag on the Wii getting two bird with one stone. The reason Wii is winning is clearly due to its broad demographic of grandpa and grandma non-gamers along with hardcore gamers who have to collect all the consoles and younger gamers that want to fit the trend.
Microsoft’s clearly shooting for second place by installing more units into the consumers home as possible. They’ve got a great library of first person shooter titles, a few RPG’s and RTS titles and the typical contraversial titles like GTA and Saints Row with more hot blockbusters (read: Gears of War 2) arriving soon.
I see this as a great opportunity for casual game developers to get into the Xbox Live Arcade market and start making themselves (and Microsoft) some money off the new gamers that will buy their first Xbox 360 for $199 and up. Microsoft’s getting closer to the low-budget gamer crowd with their price cuts so it would be great if they can take advantage of that market with lower cost titles as well.
If you’re a game developer looking for console stick time and you want to grab the attention of a large pool of gamers, the Xbox 360 isn’t a bad start!
While Microsoft isn’t aiming at Nintendo just yet, there is no doubt Nintendo will be in their sights if they can smoke the pants off Sony in the near future (by this holiday).
Gamertag has posted what they claim is a flyer sent to developers advertising the “Project Cafe” (the alleged placeholder name for the next-gen Nintendo console) SDK, with some interesting claims:
Unlike Japan, Nintendo has not invaded the entire home consumer market here in the United States. This leads them to believe there is room for both the DS and the DSi here in the United States. The DS will no doubt be a cheaper alternative to the DSi and the DSi isn’t going to make its way to the US for some time now (well into 2009 we hear).
Well, I got the same rumor, about a new console being developed by Nintendo, targeted for 2012. I am not the console expert, so please feel free to bash me for the following:
While I think the new console to be the real deal, I also think 2012 is a bit too soon. The market for 3DS was not yet properly exploited.
Now, about the SDK, Nintendo was not the most license friendly company. That lead (obviously) to a poor game library. Was that enough to wake up Nintendo? Is this the reason for having such a friendly SDK?
I say yes, that is a good reason. Actually, that is also a good lesson being taught here by MSFT.
However, from “making a friendly Nintendo SDK” to making an “easy to port SDK for all consoles” there is one more thing needed: access to the ins and outs of all consoles. Why would MSFT and Sony give Nintendo access to their technology? How would that benefit them?
Could it be an anti-competition scheme involved, where all developers settle for similar products with just little differences, only to impose a certain price level across the board?
To me, the SDK raises more questions than the piece of hardware.
Well, Nintendo confirmed it.
“Nintendo confirmed it.” 😀 The anti-competition scheme? 😀
Well it’s like there useing old ideas again. I remember they trying this with the Game cube and micro GBA’s . I’m sure its better tech this time around and I hope they have the “hard core” in mind this time around.