By Jim Drewes - May 23, 2005

Marketing and Final Thoughts

No system will be popular and successful without proper marketing.  Microsoft currently leads the pack in marketing.  With the viral ourcolony.net marketing campaign, the Xbox 360 gained a great deal of popularity.  Additionally, the fact that Microsoft will be the first to bring a next-gen console to market will certainly help the Xbox 360 gobble up market share.  Sony has also attempted to create a buzz about their next-gen gaming console through less direct advertising venues.  It has yet to be seen who will saturate the airwaves with more advertising as the consoles come closer to public release.

 
Microsoft and Sony both have other business ventures to pull capital from in order to fund the console wars.  In the last go around Microsoft took a financial hit to keep the Xbox competitive in anticipation of the upcoming console market.  With dual 1080p outputs and an impressive and incredibly expensive technological offering, it is possible that Sony is using the same technique for the Playstation 3.  It is also interesting to note that Microsoft, a software company, has promoted Xbox Live – a software product - as a major selling point for the Xbox 360, whereas Sony, an electronics corporation, has plugged the hardware elements of the Playstation 3 as a major selling point for their console.  We can also assume that the emphasis on 1080p outputs on the Playstation 3 will encourage sales of other Sony products boasting 1080p support within the next four or five years while Microsoft may try to interface the Xbox 360 with the Windows operating system, or at least Windows Media Center.

 
Nintendo always happens to fall to the periphery in next-gen analysis articles, and for good reason.  The Revolution isn’t as revolutionary as the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360, the online community will most likely not be as vast, and the game lineup won’t contain as many titles as the competition.  However, Nintendo has been dominating the handheld market, perhaps in a bid to gain more console support.  Even if Nintendo isn’t planning on using its handheld market share as a launch pad for their console sales, handheld platforms are quickly generating large sales numbers and will undoubtedly keep Nintendo in the videogame industry for years to come.

 
This generation’s console wars will most likely become another battle of Xbox versus Playstation.  Microsoft will surely control a greater percent of the market than last time, and find its way into the homes of many more gamers.  The big question is if the Xbox 360 will overtake the Playstion 3 this time around.  Analysis of the initial information provided by manufacturers shows that the Xbox 360 is no more suited to win the hearts of gamers than is the Playstation 3.  In fact, this generation might best serve the gamer.  With stiff competition between the top console manufacturers, the game industry may keep prices low and game quality high in an effort to gain our hard earned dollars.  In the end, Playstation will probably still hold the majority of the market, although the separation will only likely be a margin of a few percent.  The weeks and months that follow will provide more information on the next consoles and where the chips will fall.

 
For more information, visit the Xbox 360 website, Playstation 3 website, and Revolution website.

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