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Comment by iam | Hacker News Reader

Has it ever occurred to the OP that maybe the Xbox 360 was such a huge success precisely because of the culture of the employees there?

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Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone.

I think the next generation of consoles are going to struggle against cheaper systems like OUYA and tablets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_fi...

Wii – 99.38 million as of 31 December 2012

Playstation 3 – (IDC January 2013 estimate: "about 77 million")

Xbox 360 – 75.9 million as of 31 December 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone#Historical_sales_fig...

> Was the Xbox 360 really a huge success? It came second or third in sales for its generation of consoles. 75 million units in seven years is a small number compared to mobile devices. Android sold 144 million devices in Q4 2012 alone.

Yes it was a huge success. Even though it didn't sell as many consoles as others, its tie ratio flat-out beats[1] both the Wii and the PS3, and that's quite an important metric that's almost never taken into account, but that contributes a great deal to the success of a platform.

[1]. http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/G...

So 'tie ratio' is basically number of games sold per hardware unit? Interesting. For example, North America seems to buy about 50% more games per unit than Japan, with the exception of the PS1 and (S)NES.

I wonder if/how this affects the projects of different studios? E.g., should we expect games from Japan to tend to have broader appeal?

Why are you comparing consoles to mobile devices? Its apples to oranges. This is like comparing Netflix subscription to Xbox/PS3 consoles sold. People buy mobile devices and get the added benefit of playing games. I don't think there is a majority of people who prioritize games when looking to buy a phone (But I could be wrong).

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