Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/01/21/greenberg_versus_hirai/
Sony and Microsoft clash over consoles
Nintendo sitting pretty above the squabble
Posted in Personal Tech, 21st January 2009 16:44 GMT
Executives from Microsoft and Sony have once more slammed each other’s consoles.
Sony Computer Entertainment’s President and Group CEO, Kazuo Hirai, kicked things off by telling the Official PlayStation Magazine that the Xbox 360 “lacks longevity”.
He also claimed that, regardless of the Xbox 360’s installed base or sales figures, he’d like to think that Sony holds “official leadership in this industry”.
However, Microsoft clearly wasn’t willing to take Hirai’s criticism on the chin. Aaron Greenberg, Director of Product Management for the Xbox 360, has since fired back at Sony.
“I’m confident we will outsell the PS3 throughout the entire generation,” he told website BitBag.
But how does Microsoft plan to achieve this? Greenberg envisages “providing more innovation”, “building the best and broadest games library” and a broadening of the Xbox 360’s online entertainment network, known as Live.
Greenberg also drew upon sales figures to support his belief that the Xbox 360 still rules the console world. “Even if you doubled the current PS3 sales and Xbox 360 remained flat, they couldn’t close the gap until 2014,” he claimed.
According to the latest manufacturer-supplied - but not indepenently verified - figures, some 28m Xbox 360s have been sold globally, compared to around 16.8m PS3s. But Sony and Microsoft would both be wise to bear in mind that Nintendo’s Wii has sold 34.5m units around the world. ®