As the Console Wars heat-up, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have realized that winning comes at a price. In recent moves, all three major console manufacturers, announced large investment initiatives in order to get a stronger foothold in the emerging market.
Microsoft, at E3, announced a US$ 2 billion investment in the online future of the XBox, while more recently they announced that they won't chrgae developers a fee if they decide to make their online games available to gamers for free. This move follows a similar decision announced by Nintendo a month ago.
Sony's PS2 moves include a price reduction for PS2 games from US$49 to 39 and a US investment of US$ 250 million in order to market games. A Sony spokesman claimed that this demonstrated the company's ongoing commitment to the PS2 and should be viewed as...
an expression of our determination to promote our consoles and software, and to support games made by other companies, as hard as we did last year.
Nintendo's recent decision to reduce the US price of the GameCube has given its sales a, much needed, push. Further moves by the Japanese Console veterans, include developer support.
Nintendo expect to have sold 50 million units by 2005, Sony have shipped 30 million PS2's since its launch in March 2000 while Microsoft expect to have sold 4 million XBox's by the end of this month.