In the second part of this series I suggested that Nintendo, despite selling much more hardware than its competitors over the last five years, might have greatest cause to move ahead to the next generation of game consoles. In contrast, I think Sony and Microsoft have much less reason to push forward on new hardware. I’ll tackle the American company first.
Microsoft came out of the gate first in this generation, releasing the Xbox 360 in the fall of 2005, a full year ahead of rivals Sony and Nintendo. This rush to stores resulted in a bumpy launch—early Xbox 360 consoles were plagued with hardware issues (indicated by the notorious Red Ring of Death) that rendered them inoperable—but in the long run I think it proved a smart play.
After watching PlayStation 2 outsell the original Xbox four-to-one over the previous five years, Microsoft knew it needed a leg up in the next generation, and being first to market helped the console establish a presence (at least in the West; the Xbox 360 has flagged in Japan from day one, selling only 1.4 million consoles in that country in six years). With more than 50 million Xbox 360s sold worldwide and current sales stronger than ever, Microsoft has more than doubled the sales of its first system and sits in a comfortable (if rather distant) second place in the current generation.
Part of the reason behind Xbox 360’s success in this generation has been its ability to grow, adapt, and change. Right from the start it offered players many things they’d never before seen in a game console, including a robust online marketplace for downloadable content and a well designed online community complete with a customizable identity and those devilishly addictive achievements that players love to collect and compare.
However, thanks to a steady stream of firmware and hardware upgrades, the console has changed dramatically over the last half decade. Indeed, if a gamer from 2005 were transported to the present and shown a modern Xbox, he or she might well think that it was a next generation console, not just an evolved version of the device they would identify as an Xbox 360.
The system’s dashboard was redesigned in 2008, marking the first time a hardware manufacturer had ever completely overhauled a console’s graphical user interface mid-lifecycle. Movie and television download services were added. Gamers were provided enhanced communication features and the ability to form parties and travel from one game to another. Even the hardware itself is all but unrecognizable. Smaller and quieter, and sleeker and shinier, new Xbox 360s are closer in design to a PlayStation 3 than the formless and bulky eggshells that the first Xbox 360 buyers took home.
Of course, some of these changes and enhancements were more successful than others—Microsoft will thank you for forgetting about its doomed $200 HD DVD drive add-on—but gamers have, by and large, appreciated the system’s perpetual evolution.
Of all the changes that the Xbox 360 has undergone, the launch of the Kinect controller last fall was the most significant—and also the riskiest. This innovative array of cameras and microphones, which detects and recognizes body movements, fundamentally altered the way players were able to interact with both games and the system’s dashboard. Fortunately for Microsoft, it’s proven quite popular, with eight million units shipped to retail in just two months.
Kinect also serves as a good segue into a discussion about what to expect of the next generation Xbox. After such an important peripheral launch clearly designed to extend the life and utility of Xbox 360, it seems unlikely that Microsoft is seriously contemplating delivering a new console anytime soon. I’d be highly surprised if we heard anything about new hardware from Microsoft prior to E3 2012, which would likely mean a 2013 release and a remarkable eight years between Xboxes.
