The buzz surrounding the sixth-generation console race has subsided, and along with it, the belittling fanboyism.
With that in mind, the former president of Microsoft Games, Robbie Bach, has given a critical analysis of what happened within the console market between the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.
“Some of the success of Xbox was due to the fact that Sony did some really not so smart things,” Bach suggested. “They mismanaged their 70 percent market share.”
Bach went on the say that Sony were overambitious with their production process, making the console a difficult platform to develop on.
“The transition to PlayStation 3 was really, really bad. And really hard. They mismanaged their partners, they mismanaged their cost structure. They made their next platform so complicated that developers couldn’t develop for it.”
Robbie Bach with the original Xbox
The former Microsoft executive also accredited the 360’s success to creation and maintenance of strong relationships and partnerships with publishers such as EA and Activision.
“When you’re doing a startup, you need friends,” Bach said. “It’s just the way life works. It turned out we were able to convince retailers and publishers like Activision, Electronic Arts and others, that it was a good thing for Microsoft to be successful, because if we were not successful, the only game in town was Sony. Being dependent on somebody else was bad for them, and so they supported us disproportionately to what they should have, mathematically.”
Related Articles
SA gamers’ platforms of choice
Analysts say Sony needs to slash PS3 prices
Rumour control: Microsoft begins manufacture of nextbox
Next-gen Xbox features 16-core Power PC CPU
Loading ...
Aaaaaaaaaand, of course the price.