Behind for the 3rd Console Generation In a Row, Microsoft Enters New Delusional State About Status of Xbox 360

For those playing at home, you’ll note that the PS2 crushed the Xbox (Xbox One?) in lifetime sales. Specifically, Sony moved 157.68 million PS2 consoles while Microsoft did a fraction of that with 24.65 million sold units. The generation after that was something completely different. Microsoft rightly designed the Xbox 360 for a connected multiplayer world and brought it to market a full year ahead of the PS3 at a lower price point. This resulted in the Xbox 360 being ahead of the PS3 for most of its lifetime but towards the end, the balance began to shift. Despite still costing more than the Xbox 360 and being out for one less year, the PS3 sits at nearly 83 million units sold with X360 trails at 81 million. This gap will likely continue to widen as Microsoft has ceased support for the console with games and updates for quite sometime now as it did with the original Xbox when the next generation console launched.

With the next gen (now current gen) consoles on the market, PlayStation 4 has lead the race by launching slightly ahead of the Xbox One and being available in more territories. With a lower price point of $399 vs. $499 and far greater game library, the PS4 is well past 7 million units sold while the Xbox One (still baffling name choice) has shipped (not sold) 5 million units. What Microsoft Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer thinks about all of this is bizarre and borderline delusional.

According to Yusuf Mehdi, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Microsoft, people have been more satisfied with Xbox 360:

It’s hard to really assess the gap in sales. They’re in many more markets right now than we are. They’re in 40+ markets, we’re in 13. People have been more satisfied with the Xbox 360 than the PS3, so in that respect people have less of a need to upgrade in the short term due to regular updates for the Xbox 360.

The more markets sentiment is a fair one but Microsoft will be there as well, come this September. On the other hand, Microsoft is a company with endless resources, especially with R&D and marketing. To that point, Microsoft and the NFL signed a $400 million, 5 year deal together. In retrospect, Sony as a company hasn’t been profitable in nearly 5 years and recently all the company executives, including CEO Kaz Hirai agreed to take a 50% pay cut to help the company’s bottom line.

But beyond that (and really who can predict where the current console wars will lead), his sentiment towards the Xbox 360 is purely delusional. While the PS3 from day one has had features like HDMI output and upgradable hard drives, Microsoft locked down the Xbox 360 with a piracy proprietary hard drive while they sold bare bones versions of the console (Xbox 360 Arcade) that were crippled, due to a lack of drive which forced consumers to then spend money again on their branded drives. HDMI output itself didn’t come to the Xbox 360 till nearly half way into the consoles lifespan and Blu-ray never did make it, though Microsoft did sell the now defunct HD DVD drive for a while.

All of this has resulted in Xbox 360 owners having to continuously buying different versions of the console and/or accessories to make the console more functional. The Xbox 360 has also a notorious failure rate which some in the industry peg between 40-50% (a number that Microsoft has always downplayed), resulting in gamers needing to purchase Xbox 360 after Xbox 360. Chances are that if you know a 360 owners, that they’ve gone through either 2 or 3 consoles.

The PS3 on the other hand has offered a single vision from day one to gamers, resulting in the same experience whether you bought the console when it first launched or not till years later with the slim model. Sorry Yusuf Mehdi but it’s time that you look at your facts before you attempt to rewrite history.