Tag Archives: console comedy

Tue, Mar 18, 2008 | 06:53 GMT

That was the news – Week 11, 2008: Following disastrous NPD results, does Microsoft have the balls for a third hardware round?

Following NPD data for February on Thursday, and a slew of “brave” journalists pointing to “worry” in the Microsoft camp, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter spelt it out: if Xbox 360 isn’t in serious trouble now, it very soon will be. The analyst said that by year-end the machine will be outpaced by PS3 in Europe to the tune of 20-40 percent, and that the Sony machine will “kill” 360 in Japan. In the fourth quarter, said Pachter, PS3 will start to pull ahead in the US, an unstoppable rise in sales fuelled by Blu-ray inclusion, a potential price cut, and an increase in HD screen take-up.

It’s a nightmare situation for Microsoft, however hard it spins it. Pachter’s saying that by the end of 2008 Xbox 360 will be dominant nowhere, the machine being outsold massively by Wii in all major territories and looking forward to a grim near-future of being steamrollered in the “core” market by a maturing PS3. Essentially, it’s “lost” and the big question now is not who’s going to “win” this console generation: far more pressing is the issue of whether or not Microsoft will release a successor to Xbox 360 at all.