Seeing a lot of milestones being publicized for the 360 this week. With the 360 reaching sales plateus of 6 milliion in Europe and closing in on the on 1 million mark in Japan. With MS’s commitment to RPG this year it should be hitting that 1 million mark in Japan sometime soon. Now these are all great milestones but let’s face facts that when it comes to a global machine the 360 has done much better than the original xbox but it still has a long way to go to being on the same level as the other two consoles in the market.
With that goal in mind the 360 has been “redesigned” and had it’s prices slashed across the board to try and appeal to a broader market. Perhaps this second go around for the same system will work for MS, let’s take a look at this “redesign” that MS hopes will carry them through a strong holiday season.
The big claim for the redesign is that it is being done through the software not their hardware although the price cuts on all their hardware SKU’s will not be hurting them this holiday season. So what have they done with the software? Well to start they have taken some obvious cues from the Wii and made the xbox live a bit more “mii friendly” or user friendly if you prefer to say and the new friendlier dashboard. Plus they have lined up a bunch of “casual games” to be released along side the new cheaper consoles. This list includes games like You’re In The Movies, Scene it and Lips all games geared towards the casual gaming Wii market.
Will these subtle changes in prices and marketing be enough to give the 360 another banner holiday season in sales. There is no question that with games they have lined up and the price cuts that in the US where the 360 is solid will have a big holiday season. It’s how they do with their new direction in the other territories that will most likely dictate if we see more of this “casual game” marketing from the MS company or if they will start pushing the next console rumors to start heating up. Not to say this is a make or break holiday season for the 360 but I see the outcome of this season as a determining factor as to how soon we might see the next iteration of the xbox, 720 or whatever they will be calling it. Please share your opinions on how you see the outcome of this holiday season for the 360 and thanks for reading.
