MS Confident of Massive 360 Lead

Shane Kim says Sony is going to have a hill to climb when it launches the PS3 in November.

A lot of numbers are thrown around in the games industry, but one intriguing one was Microsoft's claim that it would have 10 million Xbox 360s sold by the time the PlayStation 3 launches. In an interview with Game Daily, Microsoft's Shane Kim said the company would meet that, and he spoke about the hurdles lying ahead for Sony.

"We would not have come out and said that we would reach the 10 million mark this year unless we clearly believed that we were going to be able to do that before Sony even ships the first units of the PlayStation 3," Kim told Game Daily.

He also called Sony's plans for the launch of the PlayStation 3 "challenging". Sony said that it would have 2 million PlayStation 3s ready for launch in November, another 2 million by the end of the year and yet another 2 million by the end of March.

But it's clear that Microsoft is keeping its own cards in order, choosing to concentrate less on what Sony is up to and more on the momentum of the Xbox 360.

A big part of that is the growth of the online space. Xbox Live is the bellwether online platform and Kim said that by mid-2007, Microsoft expects to have 6 million Xbox 360 owners online.

Another part of the plan is broadening the types of games on the system. Rare's Viva Pinata is a step in that direction, but Kim said that Microsoft will use this to show third parties that it is serious about making the system family friendly.

The downside of all this success (and Sony's PlayStation 3 price points) for potential Xbox 360 owners is that Microsoft has enough confidence in its console that a price cut doesn't seem to be coming soon.

"I think we feel very good about where we are in terms of pricing and the value that we offer customers," Kim said. "I guess it's always an option that we have, but certainly with Sony's pricing we're already at a significant pricing advantage..."

"Sony's really making their customers pay for their Blu-ray ambitions. So we feel pretty good about where we are with pricing, especially when you then factor in that we have better online, better content and so forth."

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games