http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=126688


as i said before , 360 is worrying me lately, it seems like the heat that plagued sony over a year has moved now to Ms and for good reason i might add:

First: the price cut is a joke, the premium should cost by now 300$, the consle is 2 years old, about damn time for a significant price drop, 50$ is not psychologicaly right, i' ll be surprised if it made a great impact comes the 8th of august (allegedly the date of the price cut). i' m not talking business wise as they have their reasons, but consumer wise that' s a no no.


Second: Faulty Hardware might disocurage many people to buy the 360, even with the warranty extended that will not cut it.

Thirs: the lack of casual games and multiplatform games, games that kids, girls and even grown up might enjoy, exemple jax and dexter, Ratchet and clank, mario galaxy, Microsoft lack cruely of that kind of games or more precisely AAA platform games.

Fourth: The bluray is now the winning format, this encourage more people to head to ps3 as they can have a console + a blu ray, fantastic package.

Fifth: Their e3 line up for 2007 was truly fantastic but they didn' t announce any new ip or new great sequal for 2008, this worries a lot of gamers and give a bad impression on 360, yet upon close inspection 2008 seems also fantastic for 360 but definitly not on par sony line up. I should add that ps3 line up in 2007 is also Great.

Sixth: Microsoft should sign more TRUE exclusives, not temporarly exlusives and Not PC&360 ONly. those are good but not enough. i have a hard time to argue with my friend about the 360 being a fantastic console but he always bring one thing up, " why buy a 360 if most of its games will be released on pc ? i' d rather buy a ps3 so that i won' t miss any great sequals, such as god of war , gran turismo, jax and dexter, metal gear , final fantasy " their reasoning is flawed and i' m not going into that but the point is , they should close bad mouths and the 360&pc thing is not often good.

Yes, Microsoft is in a really difficult situation right now. They have to choose between making profits ASAP (and they surely have to. After that loss last financial year in the Entertainment Division they have to kiss up to the shareholders) and selling the console. And well it seems Microsoft is confident, that games are enough to sell the console. But I have to agree, I feel a pricedrop of 20$-50$ is definitely not enough. They should take a leap of faith and drop the price by 100$, better get a higher market share and turn a profit in 2009 than get a lower market share and be profitable in 2008.

But still I am not half as much worried as you. I am confident the 360 games lineup will make sure the console will win this holiday season, with Wii as a close second and PS3 as a distant third (As long as there isn' t a real price drop in ALL markets).

Media is at a hurry to lynch the 360 these days, and people are buying it. The 2007 lineup is the best ever. Sony' s got nothing on it really.

As for 2008, its hard to tell what its going to be like.

I hope MS pulls it off, also the wii could loose novelty with all the periphials you have to buy as a casual gamer.

Wait,the most bias gamingsite aka gamepro which I said countless time has been anti xbox360 and pro sony ps3 with tons of sony interview each week make another doomsday figure for 360?

Im shooked!!

The funny thing in the article is that they compare how many consoles has been shipped,ignoring that ps3 launched in EU this year.
Or that ps3 only been out ca 8 month in USA,over 360 1.5 year.

fuck the article comment on what i said, that' s what important because that' s what many people say, and they are no fanboys. you make a point as the ps3 is a newer console , it' ll sell more but today it is stagnating... yet it' s only a small piece of the problem.

The market is far more stabilized this generation than the last. Each console has a relatively even footing. By the end of 2010 all 3 consoles should have 25-45% of the marketshare apiece.

There' s absolutely nothing factual to indicate that any one company will suddenly drop off the map.

I' m starting to get sick of flopping back & forth between whipping-boys nowadays.

Edit: spellcheck.

360 isnt doomed. No console is, the only thing 360 has really going against it is the hardware failures, Altough that year long abuse Sony had after e306 must be a record.

I doubt any console will be a distant third, least of all the 360.

You hear these dooms all the time, for all three consoles.
Wii is weak and the hype will wear off, Sony is losing 3rd party developers and is too expensive, the 360 is too unreliable and has nothing during 2008.
You can pretty much make a long list for all consoles as to why they' re doomed. Doooomed! DOOOOOOOMED!
Maybe all three consoles are doomed this generation? Looks like it with all these doomsday predictions.

Seventh: In order to play two players on some of the Xbox Live Arcade games I must create a profile for the second person even though he is sitting there with a controller right in my living room. Why can' t I just play with two players without the hassle? The second player doesn' t need an identity on my console. Creating profiles is a pain in the ass, managing them is a pain in the ass, the " blade" GUI is a pain in the ass (way too many blades) and is not intuitive, but it is Microsoft and they know nothing of intuitiveness (they created Windows®, after all).

Eighth: The demos download far, far slower than my bandwidth is capable of.

Ninth: It' s Microsoft. Quality has never, ever been their top priority in any of their ventures since they were formed. This is fact.