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Microsoft's Xbox360 Strategy

Techstination feature for Friday, May 27, 2005

Microsoft's Xbox360 strategy. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Microsoft will get a head start on Sony…in the next generation video game console business. The Xbox360 arrives this fall, while Sony says the new Playstation3 won't arrive until next spring. And even then, it may go on sale only in Japan at first. The original Xbox was outsold by the Playstation2 by a margin of four to one globally…and Sony thinks it can continue to dominate. But video game companies say it's a different Microsoft this time out. Executives such as senior VP and chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach…have spent a lot of time traversing the globe…holding meetings with game developers…

"We talk about new things we're doing. Things they need to start thinking about now and taking advantage of, and then we go from there. So for Xbox360, we went out over a year ago, we talked to them about the product, about the business we wanted to build with them. And really I think that has created a lot of positive feeling amongst the publishing community."

The result may be fewer exclusive titles for Sony. And beyond that, Microsoft hopes the next Xbox, will win fans in Japan…

"Obviously it's an important market, and we do want to be more successful there. I think our approach there will be a little different than in North America and Europe where we've had more success with this generation and we have more of a foundation to build on. In Japan, we're really building a new business."

And Microsoft has lined up a key partner. More on that, in an upcoming report. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.