Xbox falls short
The situation with the Xbox 360 shortages has been widely publicised. Almost two months after the console's debut consumers are still struggling to find a 360 on the shelves. Although it's fairly normal to have some shortages on the release of a console, Microsoft's continued shortages are irritating gamers and publishers world-wide.
Microsoft may have squandered their opportunity to grab a decent market share ahead of the release of the Playstation 3. Microsoft has said that due to an additional manufacturing plant everything should be fine by June. "Microsoft's first-mover advantage is eroding if it takes them very long to get the first 5 million boxes out," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles."If 4 million show up in the month of June and Sony launches in the month of June, there's not much of an advantage for Microsoft."
Sony will be pushing for a summer release to captilise on Microsoft's slow start.
Following on from the earlier news regarding Sony's PS3 online 'full-on assault' on Xbox live it's interesting to hear that, whilst UK websites and companies are currently allowed to set up numerous online tournaments over Xbox live, Microsoft will not currently give companies the license to set up big money tournaments. Online tournaments are a growing market and the demand is there for high quality tournaments. There are a number of PC based tournament sites offering great cash prizes, such as www.prizefight.co.uk , but a number of sites have reached a stumbling block when wanting to offer gamers huge cash prizes to compete.
The Sony PS3 online service may capitalise on Microsoft's ignorance by being the first console to offer online tournaments, ran by third party websites, offering big cash prizes. Sony hope to compete and surpass the current Xbox live service, in the online tournament race, Sony may well be first in the queue for this new marketing opportunity.
