They ”mismanaged” their huge market share with PlayStation and gave Xbox room to grow. Handling of partners, cost structure and development methods were all ‘done poorly’.
Microsoft were able to ”convince retailers and publishers” it was in their best interest that Sony weren’t ”the only game in town”, leading them to supporting Xbox ”disproportionately to what they should have, mathematically.”
Robbie Bach left Microsoft in May 2010, where he was replaced by Don Mattrick as Entertainment and Devices president.
”The transition to PlayStation 3 was really, really bad. And really hard. They mismanaged their partners, they mismanaged their cost structure. They made their next platform so complicated that developers couldn’t develop for it,” he said.
”You need friends. It’s just the way life works,” he continued. ”It turned out we were able to convince retailers and publishers like Activision, Electronic Arts and others, that it was a good thing for Microsoft to be successful, because if we were not successful, the only game in town was Sony.”
”Being dependent on somebody else was bad for them, and so they supported us disproportionately to what they should have, mathematically.” At the time around the launch of the PlayStation 3, Sony was accused of being arrogant over their pricing as they gave the impression to consumers that we’d pay whatever sum they wanted for their next tech.
This bungling and the difficulty studios had in overcoming the way PlayStation 3’s Cell tech worked seriously hampered the platform from catching up to Xbox 360 in the early days, and only now are Sony finally able to give Microsoft a run for their money in terms of unit sales. Unfortunately Sony is losing money, while Microsoft is rolling in it.
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