MS Won't Kill Off 360 As It Did The Xbox
Shane Kim comments on the fate of its second system.
Death came suddenly for the lowly original Xbox. One minute owners of Microsoft's first system were sitting down to play Jade Empire and Forza Motorsport, and the next it was gone, replaced by the upstart Xbox 360 in the autumn of 2005. Owners of the current Xbox need not worry. Death for the successor won't come nearly as swiftly.
Speaking recently with 1UP, Microsoft's Shane Kim said that the company was hoping that the Xbox 360 would have more of the staying power evinced by Sony's omnipresent console.
"If we could have a PS2-like tail, that would be awesome for the Xbox 360. I don't think you're going to see the same abrupt move to the next-generation," Kim told 1UP. "We'll have a much more balanced approach when the next-generation arrives."
The decision to effectively kill off the Xbox was not a hard one. By its own admission, Microsoft never planned on leading that particular race, and the decision was made early to move wholesale to the Xbox 360 (eased, no doubt, by the prospect of flogging off what was an albatross around the Xbox group's neck).
"We knew we weren't going to win the last generation, so it's not about 'How do we milk as much money as we can out of the last generation', it's about how do we define the future," said Kim. "That's what winning the next-generation is all about."
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
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