Today, Sony is King of the console market. The Japanese console manufacturer has about 80 per cent of the market.
However, Microsoft's announcement of their XNA platform is a serious statement about the next stage of the console cycle.
XNA is an object-oriented, XML-style platform that should allow games developers to spend more time on the gameplay and creative parts of the business and less time with endless rendering and adaption of the latest 3D engine.
In it's official statement Microsoft pointedly says, "XNA propels us ahead of Sony in the next-generation games race because the future of gaming is in software, not hardware".
This is a no nonsense reference to the fact that Sony's PS3 is focused on the development of a new type of chip called Cell. Although incredibly powerful the chip will greatly irritate games developers as its has a complicated architecture that they will need to be learnt from scratch. This adds to the already huge costs of games development and could, Microsoft hope, focus the best developers on XNA and the X-Box.
With Microsoft launching at the beginning of next year and Sony at the end the battle lines are clearly drawn.
This is a long-term super-strategic powerplay that modern marketeers everywhere should follow closely in light of the article below: Microsoft TV ?
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