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Moore: Critics of 360 Hardware 'Need a History Lesson'
>> From biz.gamedaily.com:
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We are proud to present Peter Moore's FINAL Xbox interview - we were literally his last appointment on the final day of E3. We grilled the (now former) Xbox exec on 360's hardware problems, the console's continued struggles in Japan, and more. He also tells us that Microsoft's "plans for price cuts have been laid out for years" and he knows "exactly" when they'll happen. Dig in...
* BIZ: You're saying that this is not an unprecedented failure for a video game console?
* PM: Probably the size of it may be unprecedented, and certainly the financial implications, but if people say that previous consoles have all been perfect and not had failure rates, then they need to go get a history lesson.
* BIZ: What they would point to is their PS2, which is going strong, and they hope to have similar long-term success with the PS3 for a 10-year period. What I'm getting at is that the original Xbox was cut off around 4 years in, so what kind of length do you see for the 360? Is the 360 going to be out in the market and viable still 7-8 years from now?
* PM: I sincerely hope so. I think the plan we have built, that calls for cost reductions in hardware, clearly gives us an advantage in price that actually allows us to get to [lower] price points much sooner than Sony will. They can have a "10-year plan" all they like, but it's executing that plan and getting to the mass market with price points [that matters], and I feel a lot closer to being able to do that than they do right now.
So we see long-term growth, we see connected entertainment through Xbox Live continuing to grow, the games we have both in depth and breadth feel good... so yeah we've got a plan and it's a long-term plan. Nobody knows how many years; it's easy to say 10 years. Their plan I'm sure is being rejiggered as it is because it was their plan to sell 6 million units during the fiscal year and I don't think they did that. They missed by I think 2.4 million units and people sit here all week giving me a hard time because we missed by 400,000 of a particular target.
* BIZ: $399 for 360 is quite expensive for the average consumer as well, though. If you're especially interested in that non-core audience you need to bring down 360's price. And if you brought down the core SKU to $199 that could be a big seller, don't you think?
* PM: Well, we have a clear strategy laid out for price cuts. Because we're the market leader, we don't need to follow. Our plans for price cuts have been laid out for years. We know exactly when they're going to happen. We watch with interest what everyone's doing, but nothing anybody's doing on the market has changed our plan. So when we're ready to cut price and when we're ready to bring in a whole swath of new consumers we'll do that. But we're a leader in that respect rather than a follower. And by leading, I mean we do it when we think it's convenient to us, not because we have to react to somebody else.
* BIZ: Microsoft made a big fuss over IPTV for Xbox 360 a while back and we've not heard anything since. Can you fill us in on what's happening?
* PM: As we stated at CES, our partners will make the announcements - our partners being the telcos obviously. It's still on target for this year. It's a different group, doesn't report to me, but I think you can expect to see something rolled out [later this year]. It is reliant and has a lot of co-dependencies on the providers, so that's their responsibility to make the announcement.
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Full Story: biz.gamedaily.com (4 pages)
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