Bryan Rose, resident Café release dates guy, made a post in the forums the other day about the Xbox sales and how “Xbox is in deep trouble…” Well, I was going to let it go for a little while, but Dannielle, resident Café female and Yoshi huggler, made a response to it about how we always knew that it was selling poorly. I don’t know what it was that struck me, but I needed to respond. And so I did. The following is exactly what I said (everything up to and through “…for another console or twenty.”). I will further expound on my logic in the concluding chapter of this.

Everywhere except in the good 'ol idiot run U. S. of A, the Xbox is a failure. And even in certain sects it's a failure here. At my Funcoland I work at, we can't move Xboxes (partly due to all the workers talking them down and up selling cubes and PS2s). We've had the same 30 new Xboxen sitting in the back for the past month. Gamecube we haven't sold out lately, but we sell a pretty good number, and PS2 we have 30489373 systems, but they just keep selling (mostly because they are shoddily built and break in less than a year. Any Sony sales numbers should be divided by about 2.25 because almost everyone I know who has a PS2 has had to buy a second one already). Yes, we know the Xbox is a global failure, and it doesn't shock anyone. Microsoft is loosing mad phat cash monies on every system they sell, it's not like they can't afford it. When the Xbox launched in November 2001, at a price point of 299.99, they were forcing everyone to buy three games with the system. They were taking, I believe, around one hundred dollars in loss. Now, with a price point of 199.99 and two free games, they are taking an even larger hit. Look at it. One hundred cheaper, therein taking the deficit to about -200/system, and then giving two games would give people reason enough to not buy more games. Microsoft's original game plan was:

"Ok, we'll take a larger hit on the system so we can match Sony's price, and make all of our money back in game Sales. Ready? Break.....Wait. What? You're telling me we made crap games for launch? Jesus H Christ in a chicken basket! Well, what do we have? We've got Halo? Ok, let's make the game seem a lot better than it is and make everyone buy a bundle in which Halo is not included."

I've read just about every sales account I can find. The majority of them place the Xbox ahead in sales, but the majority of those don't include sales from places like Wal*Mart, which is a large market share. Recently there was a firm, the name escapes me, and it was hosted by Yahoo! finance, which is a respectable news source, put the Gamecube about 500,000 units ahead. Sales figures will always be conflicting. There was a recent article at IGNXbox where it touted that the Xbox outsold the Gamecube every single month since launch. That is complete and total bullshit. I know for a fact that the Gamecube outsold the xbox at least 60% of the time. The article was complete and total Fanboy garbage.

Microsoft was banking on Xbox live being its saving grace, and we all know it isn't. Metroid Prime and Xbox Live launched the same week. With a three day jump on Nintendo (just like System Launches); Microsoft sold half the quantity that Metroid Prime did. Metroid sold 2x units over Xbox Live, and both were at the same cost (hell, Xbox Live even came with two game demos to play online.)

Microsoft was to just break even on the Xbox in 2004, and that was when it was 300 dollars. Now it's 200 dollars and not bundled with games. Even giving them more credit than is deserved, they won't break even until 2005/2006, and by that point, they will have to have Xbox II on the market and sold to compete with the impending PS3 and Gamecube II.

Microsoft has screwed the pooch pretty much all around. They expected huge sales everywhere, and they only quasi-achieved that in the U.S. The Xbox is slowly collapsing like a flan in a cupboard. The Gamecube is doing fine, not as well as some would have liked, but well enough to make a huge, fat profit off of and keep Nintendo around for another console or twenty.

Sadly, the Xbox is failing everywhere else. In the US it seems to do well enough to keep around. The thing is this; next year will separate the men from the boys. Nintendo has basically shot their wad in 2002, and even though there are plenty of things (i.e. Pikmin 2, Mario 128, Star Fox Armada, F-Zero, and all kinds of other fun), nobody really knows when exactly for those titles, and could they be too little too late? In 2003 Xbox has a strong line-up. Starting with Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, and then going into Brute Force, Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic, WWE Raw 2, and Panzer Dragoon Orta, the Xbox has a killer set up for the first half of 2003. Time will tell the future of the Xbox. Microsoft has deep enough pockets that taking a loss means nothing; they just want to knock out some of the competition (anyone ever hear of a little program called Windows? Yeah, that’ll happen again if they keep it up). Nintendo needs a real, real strong line-up for this year to keep it strong. I want them to succeed and I think they will, but I’m not counting out the possibility that they may not do so.