NEWS - Saturday, July 26, 2003
Xbox Financial News
Microsoft's underdog Xbox is looking like a leader online. Sony had better look alive. Microsoft's videogames have had more fits than starts. Its console, the two-year-old Xbox, loses something like $100 per unit sold, or a billion dollars a year. Xbox had a disastrous launch in Japan and still runs far behind Sony's PlayStation 2 in worldwide sales. But the game's not over. Witness the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, the gaming industry's annual confab in May. For the goateed and backpack-toting attendees, E3 is a big, honking sneak peek at the next killer games, and Microsoft had the best of them all: Halo 2, the sequel to its 2001 sci-fi action masterpiece. People waited hours in line just to see the eight-minute demonstration. "It's one of our most ambitious projects," says Robert (Robbie) Bach, the Microsoft senior vice president in charge of Xbox. "It's a title that will sell anytime, anyplace." Click here for the rest of the report from Forbes.com. Microsoft rethinks Japanese Xbox tactics With less than 500,000 Xboxes thought to have been sold in Japan since the console launched last year, and Tecmo's Dead or Alive-based titles the only games to top 40,000 units, Microsoft is starting to take the situation over there very seriously. Speaking at a press conference this week, Peter Moore spoke of how the company will introduce various Xbox Live updates announced at E3 to the Japanese service, while cutting down on the wait for new European and American titles with its new "Xbox World Collection". Click here for the rest of the report from The Register.Source: http://www.xboxaddict.com/
