> 2 - Both the Windows brand and Microsoft's imagine are at best mehh..at worse very uncool and bad.
Which would explain Xbox.
Edit: sorry for being obtuse. The point is that Microsoft entered the gaming market with a worse brand than today, and later than with iPhones and is despite that very sucessful.
Game consoles compete with other consoles in their own generation. PS2 beat XBOX 1 to market by a full year, and trounced it in sales.[1] XBOX 360, on the other hand, beat PS3 to market by a full year, and did better in sales.[2]
XBOX is also uniquely distanced from other huge Microsoft brands, and the overall Microsoft brand itself. People usually just say "XBOX", and it's conspicuously removed altogether from other brands such as Windows. Imagine if it had been called "Windows Game System".
100% accurate. XBOX is a horrible example. Console makers live and die by their current generation. Only Nintendo has the brand to survive failures (and I'd say even they have to start being careful now).
The history of Sega and Sony alone are very telling.
I will admit that I'm surprised that Xbox's branding easily survived the ring-of-death disaster. Part of that is how much money they threw at the problem and part of that is the state of the market [for hard-core console gamers].
Also, remember that the division is billions of dollars in the red. It'll likely take them 2 more iterations (or 10+ years) to break even assuming they can keep their current momentum (which history tells us will be hard).
I have no idea how the Xbox fits into this discussion, but I'll bite:
Windows Mobile has had a decade of shitty products that have ruined its reputation. A full ten years, during which their competitors were essentially jump-starting the modern smartphone market. They've now got what people say is a quality product, but they'll have to work twice as hard to win back iPhone and Android converts.
The Xbox, on the other hand, was (1) a first entry for Microsoft into a new market and (2) not associated with ANY existing Microsoft brand. The Xbox line won support based on its merit and quality (even considering ridiculous shit like the Red Ring of Death issues) from day one.
What was wrong with the MS brand for gaming when Xbox came out? Their OS was practically the exclusive platform for computer games at the time, and that was all they had to do with gaming, so they were neutral at worst.
Which would explain Xbox.
> 2 - Both the Windows brand and Microsoft's imagine are at best mehh..at worse very uncool and bad.
Which would explain Xbox.
Edit: sorry for being obtuse. The point is that Microsoft entered the gaming market with a worse brand than today, and later than with iPhones and is despite that very sucessful.