Xbox 360 Fanboy

Microsoft is King all of a sudden? I'm sorry, but isn't the ps2 still the dominant console?

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Pretty good article, but kinda assumes MS just has unlimited amounts of money, and isn't out to make any profit. I realize they DO have oodles of money, but even companies with tons of funds don't like to just blow it endlessly.

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the halo3 beta should be till October :P

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Get Japan on board.

Things are looking fairly rosy for MS this time round but without selling to the Japanese market and, more beneficially for us in the west, getting some innovative Japanese games on the console MS will end up 2nd.

I for one am getting a little bored of endless 1st/3rd person shooters...

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Keep Producing exclusive hit titles of which the PS3 has very few of and really none to date. I do not think a price cut is necc. this early and I think the $50 for live and user experience they provide is superior to all other systems and will continue to be. Live is the only reason I still play games. I would gladly pay for it. It does only cost 7.2 cents a day.

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@1 since when is the ps2 a 'next gen' console? and a price cut wouldnt help MS win the race. The plain and simple truth is if someone wants to play a game they will buy the console. So get some console shifting games out soon MS. H3 Beta tommorrow!!!! Woohoo

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Most important? Lower the GHII new songs price. 500 points!??? Come ONNN.

I do like the idea of Live being free. Its not too bad now, but connecting to other users to play over the internet has been here for awhile and its free on the computer. Throw us a bone MS.

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I agree on all points, but a lot of that is easier said than done. The price cut would do wonders for their market penetration (as they'd have the cheap console angle similar to the Wii, and the much cheaper than a PS3 angle as well), but at the same they'd be losing out on some great revenue.

I remember reading a post by someone who said they previously worked at Microsoft, and that the current opinion by the higher ups is "Why cut our price when it's already so much better than the PS3's?". Now I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly sounds like the approach they'd be taking. It's perfectly logical.

Long story short, while cutting the price by say... $100, would be great for the consumer, market penetration, and staying on top... staying at the current price and risking losing ground is a sure fire way to make back development costs.

Anyways, the keys to success were as they said, on the whole. More exclusives, special bundles, a possible price cut either directly before or after christmas (personally I believe that IF they offer a price cut, it will be after selling the console for the current price at christmas), and free Xbox Live (which would be great, but I can't help but wonder if our money goes a long way to keeping Xbox Live a solid system).

Additionally though, they need better market penetration in Japan, which they've been making great strides with lately, and the future looks bright. And to steal away as many PS3 non-1st party exclusives as possible, making them multi-platform titles. Having games like Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, and so on, on the Xbox 360, could go a long way.

Most of those are pretty obvious, but it comes down to DOING THEM, rather than all this pointless debating and speculation. Nothing we say here matters, what matters is if Microsoft chooses to utilize any of these ideas or not.

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A Console/Halo 3 bundle is a no-brainer- if MS doesn't offer it, Gamestop and every other major retailer on the planet will.

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Xbox Live will never be free. If it did go free, it would turn into the Playstation crap. And Japan is a lost caused full of DS and Nintendo. Microsoft's best beat is the "Good Game a Month" formula. Gamers can only afford one game a month, and if Microsoft puts one game a month out that is worth it, then we will support it. Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Gears, GRAW2, Rainbox Six. As long as we get a good game every month, then there should be no problem keeping gamers happy, and PS3 can't do that, no matter how hard they try....http://jayslacks.blogspot.com

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Microsoft is not in a position where they need to be the first to act on a price drop. As is said in the post, the 360 is already much cheaper than the PS3. I'd predict that you won't see a 360 price drop until soon after Sony drops the PS3 price.

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They could make Xbox Live free, but to offset the cost, they'd have to have ads everywhere. Personally I'm happy enough paying 50 a year to make sure that my online experience is pleasant. I'd pay 100 dollars a year to make sure that the 360's online experience doesn't turn into the wii or the PS3's (both terrible).

I think Microsoft needs to show us what games will be coming after Halo 3 and GTA IV if they want to stay on top. Halo 3 and GTA IV are great and all, but it seems like there is going to be a massive drought going into spring of 08, and, possibly, summer of 08. Waiting till fall of 08 to get something other than Halo 3 or GTA IV to play might be a problem.

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They need to lower the price of the console...plain and simple. The problem with the 360 is that for most people it's not an impulse buy product. $400 is a lot to spend for the casual gamer but the Wii at $250 does fall into that impulse buy bracket. Xbox Live is $50 because it's awesome and anyone who's played online will tell you that $50 is well worth it. If they lower the price of the 360 when Halo 3 comes out and then bundle it with Halo 3 I don't think Microsoft will be able to produce enough systems fast enough to keep up with the demand.

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How about in addition to taking the low/cheap route, they also include some high quality mature peripherals, dashboard update features, and software titles both interactive and passive entertainment. The console is still so geared (pun intended) toward the 15-25 dweeb that is more interested in the rhetoric and potential, than the actual products. Families and adults want bottom line quality for the dollar. Good solid quality entertainment. I spend more on a weekend trip with the family to an amusement park than a 360 and small HDTV. The cost is not the issue, the quality is. Families are pinched for maximizing family time. The interface is slow. The system overheats. The peripherals don't center, wear out horribly fast. The connectivity for media streaming is painfully slow to navigate. Where is the one single button on the remote to play favorite music playlist? Where is the Play Most recent Video button? Every time you go to the xbox live arcade screen it recounts the items? Sheesh. Cache some stuff already. Might as well go get all the available Videos, Music and Pics along with xbox live arcade titles in the background so when you get to those, they are ready. Who is in charge of usability there? They need to be fired. Or maybe there job is to maximize the amount of tiem you have to stare at the ads. Either way it sucks and it is costing them.

They are not taking any action to attract mature adults and families whose main concern is time not a few hundred bucks.

Toasters toast quickly. Coffee Makers make coffee quickly. DVD players play Videos quickly. The 360 makes you struggle through a clumsy interface painfully slow and then gives you red error lights.

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I would like all of those things.. But. I don't care of MS is king.. Who should care. All i care about is that they still have games that I want to play, and the continue to bring out quality games, as well as content that I want. As long as they do that.. i could freakin care less that PS2 or PS3 outsells it. As long as they can stay profitable and stay in the business, then i'm cool with it.

I like the 360.. so what.. I could care less that its winning some fictional console war? What if they do win, will it bring something new to the table? probalby not.. Most any game i care about is on the 360 or at least coming out for it, so in the end.. they've won for me anyways.

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Anonymous

I don't see any massive drought coming to the 360 in spring 08

Here is a list of all the games coming this fall that I don't think you can all play/finish in winter:

Halo 3
GTA IV
Guitar Hero III
Rock Band
Mass Effect
Too Human pt.1
Bioshock
PGR4
Forza Motorsport 2
Splinter Cell
Madden 08
All Pro football
Stranglehold
NBA live 08
NBA 2K8
Darkness
maybe fable 2 in spring 08
maybe that alan wake game
Also all the xbox live arcade games coming out every week and other games I can't think of.

Plus Halo 3 you play years of it online and try beating it on legendary cooperatively.

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Sometimes I read the comments and there are decent ones, but other times people just like to bitch without any knowledge of the subject. Case in point; Guy that said "Xbox Live should have a free basic membership!" well...guess what...it does have a free basic membership

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Despite what we geeks may think, THE MARKET is saying that the 360's main competition is the Wii, PS2 and the DS. $400 is much greater than $250 in the eyes of the typical consumer (Mom). MS needs the casuals to get from 12M to 50M+ sold. They need to lower the price now.

They could probably keep the fee for Live, since people can readily see the value they are getting value for their money and it is "optional".

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If they get in bed with Konami and Square-Enix better (read: Get Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid), they won't have much more to worry about in the exclusive department.

I agree they need a pricecut. $400 is still a lot to people. And those people won't be buying a PS3 any time soon, if ever. I still insist that they dump the core, sell the premiumat $300 and sell the Elite at $400. That would do a lot for them. Why they insist on wasting time with the Core system is beyond most people...they sit on shelves too long and are a waste of production costs.

If the core is still necessary, then they seriously need to pricecut those hard drives. Big time.

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@EdgeOne, usually I'm not quick to say this, but in this case... you're just mostly wrong.

1) In theory, yes every Xbox 360 should have an HDD, that would be great. But it would have bombed almost as much as the PS3 at launch by forcing the consumer to pay for the HDD. A lot of people buy the core systems because they have no interest in Xbox Live, or because they're on a budget.

2) Again, backwards compatibility? That would be great, in theory. You see, the architecture of the Xbox 360 is nothing like the original Xbox. To create a better machine (the Xbox was a solid system, but much of its internal design was seriously flawed)... they had to scrap almost everything from the original Xbox and built the 360 from the ground up, learning from their mistakes.

So true backwards compatibility isn't an option unless they built the system directly off the original Xbox, which would have been a mistake.

3) First off, Xbox Live does have free BASIC membership. And Xbox Live free in general... again, good in THEORY, bad in practice. With Xbox Live, you get what you pay for. It's the best online console gaming architecture by far because our yearly subscription fee pays for it to be kept in top shape.

Whereas Nintendo's GameCube and Wii online capabilities are almost non-existent, and the PS2 and PS3s are just plain bad. That being because Nintendo and Sony in those cases are footing the bill, why would they want to spend THEIR money on creating an online system that doesn't benefit them financially? So again, you get what you pay for.

4) Built-in HD DVD and wireless would up the cost too much. A lot of the reason people are buying 360s over a PS3 is because it's less expensive. But if you put in the features you mentioned their pricing gap would close, and both would be on equal footing. So basically, Microsoft doesn't want to give Sony the edge by including those features built in.

And additionally, what does it hurt if you have to buy them separately? It doesn't hurt you to have to buy them as add-ons, and for people who DON'T want to pay extra and have an HD DVD player, they don't have to pay for features they don't want/need.

5) You're actually right on number five.

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