NEWS - Wednesday, January 17, 2001
Xbox Not Afraid of PS2
Datamonitor an industry analyst has said by the year 2005, the Xbox will be following the PS2 in second place. All because of the Xbox delay in Europe.According to the analyst, since Europe won’t be getting the Xbox until 2002, that in turn will make it very hard for Microsoft to catch up with Sony. Here is how Datamonitor came up with their prediction:
"Xbox is not expected in Europe before 2002, which means it will miss the Christmas 2001 period in Europe. This will allow Sony to sell more PlayStation 2s. It will be all the more difficult for Microsoft to catch up."
Sandy Duncan, the guy who is helping Xbox make it’s way into European homes, steps up to the plate and gives his opinion on the subject:
"Second place is the first loser. Sony has a market share of around 55 percent in the U.S. and about 80 percent in Europe. It would be one of the biggest marketing achievements in history to overtake them, but within the life of Xbox we expect to be market leaders.""There were discussions about whether we should launch only in the U.S., but we decided we couldn’t give Sony a head start of two Christmases in Japan. We could, however, afford to delay in Europe. Here, we will, in effect, just lose just one Christmas, because PS2 didn’t really sell many this year with the production delays and pre-ordering system. And we can certainly claw back the momentum of Christmas 2001 from Sony - we won’t lose anything."
It looks like Mr.Duncan has Europe all under control.
Source: http://www.fgnonline.com/
