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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EnricoPalazzo who wrote (48587)	11/6/2001 1:54:22 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

the two products seem comparable technologically (although you'd expect the X Box to better, since it's newer). no, the Xbox is superior--it has a hard drive and Ethernet port for starters, as well as a processor that's like 3 times as fast and a hot graphics chip from Nvidia (part of the reason for the delay). hey, it should be better--they had an extra 18 months to get it to market. but who cares how good the box is, what matters is the software. will they have hit titles only on the Xbox? maybe, but i doubt it at first. the addressable market will be on the order of 1 or 2 million, instead of 20 million for Sony. MSFT are going to totally miss the holiday season in Japan, a crucial market. plus, it may take time for developers to learn the system. but i suspect MSFT is not looking for an overnight victory. the potential losses (according to analysts) are on the order of $1 billion, not 10 i saw that blurb today on Reuters. they're saying a billion in losses by 2004. but that assumes it is a success. if it flops, then the losses could be much much larger. As for X Box being part of a war of attrition with Sony... why would MSFT want to go to war with Sony? it doesn't make sense, and if that is their angle, then they're stupid. all i can think is that they're not that stupid, so there must be another angle. like finding a new, massive market where they can have proprietary control over the platform and collect royalties in the multi, multi billions a few years out. besides gaining entre to your living room. But I don't exactly see it turning the company around, or causing the next tornado. given the costs, i think it better be a helluva victory for them. who ever heard of a HALF-BILLION-DOLLAR marketing campaign???