Microsoft Justifies the Xbox without Blu-ray!

Aaron Greenberg,Director, product management at Microsoft seems to think that Sony’s PS3s have a problem. And… he even has his own diagnosis of what caused the problem.

Now that’s called caring for competition, especially when they’re breathing down your neck. But it takes REAL cheek to isolate your competitor’s strongest point, describe it as their weakest, and then say THAT is why you can’t include it and NOT because you couldn’t sell it at their prices if you included it. Quite simply, Microsoft is bed-ridden with a case of sour grapes.

Returning to the MLB (Major League of Blu-ray bashers) after winning a hard-fought battle for the HD DVD, Greensberg speaks on behalf of Microsoft to say that because Sony has “bet on the physical disk”, the “associated costs” are restricting PS3 sales. Wait a second, so the HD DVD was NOT a physical disk…was it like holographic? *Checks one of those old HD-DVD flippers* nuh-uh, nada, looks ‘physical’ alright.

Greenberg continues, “The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost. Being $100 cheaper is part of the reason why we’re nearly twice [Sony’s] installed base.”

Let’s be clear, there was a time when a PS3 sold for $499. The prices were always high, because of a lot of powerful components including the Blu-ray. And that’s when the XBox 360 grabbed most of the market share. Then came the Wii, and then everyone wanted to be the cheaper console. back then, Greenberg’s statement might have stood.

However, ever since the much more streamlined PS3 Slim came out, with its $299 price-tagged, 33% smaller, 36% lighter and 34% less power-consuming avatar. things haven’t been the same. Sony recorded an annual sales growth of 30%.

Greenberg’s next claim of Xbox Live offering HD movies and television shows pales when you remember that NetFlix left its exclusivity agreement and joined the PS3 team as well, in November 2009. So yes, you can have NetFlix on your friendly neighborhood gaming console, without the $50 Xbox Live Gold membership.

And the NetFlix application, which will be downloadable this year, for now, will be made freely available to subscribers via..

Yep thats a Blu-ray disk. 😀

Nice excuse, Mr. Greenberg. 😉