The last gen console cycle was a complete opposite of the current gen. Sony literally struggled with the PlayStation 3 for the first few years with some terrible PR decisions and lack of quality games. But the biggest difference between the PS3 and Xbox 360 was the price point. Sony literally shot themselves in the foot when they announced that the PS3 will retail for $599.
In an interview conducted by IGN, former Xbox boss Peter Moore recalled his experience on positioning the Xbox 360 as a living entertainment experience powered by human energy and how happy they were when Sony announced a higher price point compared to Xbox 360.
“First we needed to get the name right for the damn thing and then we needed to get the spec right and then we needed to get the controller right and then we need to get the marketing right. We needed to position and we needed to position it in a unique way.”
“The line we came up with was the Xbox 360 is a living entertainment experience powered by human energy and that may sound like marketing BS to you. The human element manifests in Xbox Live but this living entertainment experience was going to be bigger than games. Games was at the core but it’s going to play music and eventually you are going to play movies on it and this was the difference. We needed to get out first, we needed to get our price point right, we need to get our launch portfolio powerful, we need to get away from being a shooter box which was a challenge. We needed to be more inviting so we came up with a tag line called Jump In.”
“I also remember E3 [2006] when Jack Tretton and Kaz Hirai announced $599 and we were all back stage, partying…hooo hoo! We knew then that we had the opportunity to get ahead, drive ahead and get our games ahead and get the lead. And I said the first to get to 10 million wins.”
However, Phil Spencer and the team at Microsoft just repeated what Sony did back during E3 2006 as he humorously acknowledged it. “And that backlash we had two years ago…did’nt we [laughs]?…that was the opposite feeling there.”
I guess, both companies are even now.