Re: When Will Microsoft Own Up to the XBox 360 Bomb?, the XflopThreeShitty is losing the Console wars all the time!


"Doug Jacobs" <djacobs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:132if2mm5csapeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Most financial analysts don't actually understand the market or even the
product they're dealing with. They simply stare at numbers, then ask
their Magic 8-ball for advice. This article reads no differently.

It really sounds as if this guy expected Microsoft's console endeavor to
be profitable from day 1 - because you know, ALL new companies/divisions
start out making gobs of money on their first day and with their first
product... Yeah, good assumption there.

Bad assumptions are going to lead to bad analysis and equally bad
articles.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/04/20/does-microsoft-need-japan-to-succeed/

It's been generally known for a while that Microsoft has had trouble selling
game systems in Japan, first with the Xbox and now with even slower sales of
the Xbox 360. Analyst Robert Ehrenberg harps on this fact in a repetitive
analysis claiming that the Xbox brand in a "bomb" that is dragging down the
company.

We don't buy it. While it's true that Japan still holds the spiritual center
of the industry for many gamers, we don't necessarily agree with Ehrenberg's
conclusion that "success in the Japanese market is a key determinant of
success in the worldwide market." The Japanese market for home systems has
actually been sizably smaller than the European and American markets for at
least the past two generations. And while the best-selling systems in Japan
tend to also do well elsewhere, success in Japan does not necessarily lead
to success in the rest of the world -- see the tepid worldwide reaction to
the hot-in-Japan Saturn and Dreamcast as evidence.

But Ehrenberg's logic really fails when he claims that a weak Japanese start
means that key developers will be unwilling to support the system. Healthy
360 support from the likes of Capcom, Namco, Sega and Sakaguchi's MistWalker
studio shows that Japanese companies are considering the 360's global
footprint in their worldwide distribution plans. Maybe Japanese game buyers
aren't important as long as Japanese companies and the rest of the world are
on board.

Ehrenberg also asserts that Microsoft should dump the Xbox because it has so
far failed to make them money. This neglects the long term value of the
branding and cachet that Microsoft is slowly but surely building as a major
part of the gaming universe. That kind of branding is invaluable. Just look
at Star Wars -- three crappy prequels weren't enough to truly dilute the
value of the hot property.


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