While keeping the prospect of the launch fresh in the mind's of consumers and cooing over its achievements in the retail market, Microsoft would only discuss the time-scale for the launch of XBox live in vague terms.
XBox Australia regional director, Alan Bowman, said the online gaming service would be launched this year, but wouldn't provide a description of the time-frame for the launch more specific than "soon".
"There's a whole lot of things we need to do to make sure that the Australian consumer experience is right...we're definitely committed but we've just got to confirm the time-frame," a spokesperson for XBox Australia said today.
Sony Computer Entertainment Australia (SCEA), incumbent game console market leader, late last year committed to launching its PlayStation2 online gaming service by mid 2003.
Microsoft has used aggressive tactics to challenge the domination of SCEA's Sony PlayStation 2 platform console, including drastically marking down the price of the XBox in April 2002 shortly after its launch. At the time it was widely seen as move to gain the confidence of game developers.
Microsoft yesterday claimed that XBox's market penetration had reached critical mass required for development of titles for the console to accelerate.
According to market intelligence firm Informa, Microsoft has sold around 225,000 units since its launch 10 months ago -- which it claims is 100,000 more than the number of PS2 units SCEA sold wthin the same period after its launch.
"We are proud to say that we already have around 150 great games available and expect to have around 250 games by June this year," said Bowman.
Microsoft still has some way to go before it can claim to match the PlayStation 2 established position in the console gaming arena and its key revenue generator, game title sales.
According to Informa, SCEA had sold over half-a-million of its consoles in Australia by the beginning of Q4 last year and offered around 1,300 game titles.
I walked into an computing store in Australia and saw the XBox and PS2 side by side. The PS2 was cheaper than XBox but XBox seemed to provide better graphics. There were more games for the PS2 and the XBox's range was very limited. I doubt I would buy an XBox just to get better graphics. Besides half the features of XBox aren't even fully utilised in the games anyway well that's what the salesman told me.
Halo looked very nice on the XBox I must admit it was playing on one of the demo machines and people seemed to like it but there was a bigger queue behind the PS2 machine. If Halo is the pinnacle of Microsoft's gaming range I am not suprised it's second place. I believe Microsoft bought some company out to get that too and made it an XBox only game it's a shame really that game would look good on any platform. I guess Microsoft are desperate when they resort to things like that just to sell XBoxes.
Sony were the big name when it came to gaming consoles sort of like Microsoft is with Windows. It good to see Microsoft loose like this to come second place in the gaming console they deserve to loose. They've finally got a taste of their own medicine and it's great. A couple more looses like this should bring Microsoft down a peg or too.
As for XBox Live I doubt Microsoft is going to realease it in Australia any time soon. Microsoft has always been slow in Australia probably because Australia is a small market compared to other markets around the world. The XBox Live will come out here eventually but no time soon. However things would be different if Sony had a similar sort of thing going.