Microsoft came into this last round with the Xbox. The Black and Green box did quite well actually, beating out Nintendo when it came down to consoles sold. They established a much stronger Online presence than Sony, and obviously Nintendo (who didn't have any Online strategy).
What will the story be this time for the Xbox 360? Will they gain ground? Will they even pass Sony? Let's take a look at what Microsoft has to offer in the near future.
Xbox 360 Strengths:
Release Date: One of the biggest advantages a Console can have is an early start, and the Xbox 360 will have a healthy one. Factor in that they will release a good 2 months before Christmas, and you have a very happy holiday season for Microsoft. Consumers generally hate waiting, so expect to see many Xbox 360s under the tree this year.
Price:Looks like the Xbox 360 will be cheaper than the PS3. Is the PS3 going to be priced above what the average is willing to spend?
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
• Three symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
• Two hardware threads per core; six hardware threads total
• VMX-128 vector unit per core; three total
• 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
• 1 MB L2 cache
It's quite hard to say who will come out on top, but despite the PS3 having an edge processing wise, the Xbox360 is still one huge powerhouse of a system for processing. They will surely be faster than the Revolution.
Custom ATI Graphics Processor (Xenos)
• 500MHz processor
• 10 MB of embedded DRAM
• 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically scheduled shader pipelines
• Unified shader architecture
ATI Claims that it's the Unified shaders that sets it apart from the PS3 graphics processor from Nvidia, the RSX. Looks like they could have a slight edge in the graphics department. Apparently, the Xbox 360 demos displayed at E3 were running at 30% of the power of the Xbox 360 when it is released. We'll just have to wait and see, but we'll give a slight edge to the 360 for now.
Great Online Strategy Carried over from the Xbox: Sony did so much right with their system, but they dropped the ball for Online play. This is where the Xbox had the advantage. Look for them to continue in strong Online services that make it easier for the players to connect, interact, and do more Online.
Hard Drive will Come as Standard Once Again: More than ever, players will really need a lot of storage space for save games, mods, add ons, and more. Expect also people to scan their own faces into games, download music, and need to store other space intensive data on their hard drives. Sony is looking at this option, but are still not sure. Sony really should do the same thing, but they may not. This is another edge for the Xbox 360 to be sure.
Halo 3, and cool PC Games : Surely one of the most anticipated games to be coming out within the year will be Halo 3. So much so, that Bill Gates is planning to release the game around the same time as the PS3 Launch. Expect a better than ever Halo experience. Also expect to see some wicked PC games on the 360. People who can't afford top end PC systems will be able to buy a less expensive Xbox 360, and enjoy these games. Gears of War also looks simply amazing.
Xbox 360 Weaknesses:
Not as Many Developers Despite having Halo and some other strong games in their lineup, Microsoft still has the disadvantage when it comes to companies Developing for the Xbox 360. There is no doubt that the 360 will have more developers for it this time around, but still not the truckloads of quality game publishers that Sony can boast about. This can change over the life of these next gen consoles, but not for now as it stands.
Most games for the Xbox, you can get for the PC. (see advantages as well for this 2 sided debate.): There are many games that come out for the PC that are amazing. The original Xbox seemed to land a fair amount of these titles. But then why should someone who owns a PC, buy the same game on the Xbox. Often when the game is actually better on the PC? Who would want to play Halo on a controllers when you can play it with a mouse?
Market Lead by Sony Hard to Penetrate: You can put out a great product, get some great games in the lineup, but it's always hard to break brand fans who will stick with their company through almost anything. Sony fans seem to be quite loyal, and will want to stick with the PS3 unless it's a total bomb. All 3 consoles will offer backwards compatibility with old games, but this bodes well the most for Sony, which already has a huge user base. It's about numbers, and often numbers are hard to beat when it comes to brand loyalty.
Up in the Air:
Will the Xbox 360 have an edge on graphics? Will this be marketed in such a way that people want to buy Xbox 360 games over PS3 games? Will more and more developers jump to Microsoft to develop games?
Bottom Line:
The Xbox 360 is going to gain more of the market this time around. The early release date just before Christmas, the pricing, and the momentum from the last Xbox will give Microsoft a boost. The question is, where will the new Xbox 360 buyers be coming from? Will they be switching over from the Sony camp, Nintendo, or will they be new users? My gut tells me that Nintendo is going to get hit hardest by the 360 this time. This could be like the knockout blow that was made to Sega's console, the Dreamcast.
