MicroTechXP

Sounds like a schoolyard fight.

Speaking in a brutally honest interview with Gamasutra, Sony vice president of marketing for PlayStation Peter Dille questioned Microsoft’s business plan entering the video game industry, and more specifically the stability of the Xbox 360.

Palgn is reporting that Sonys vice president for marketing said,“I don’t want to be argumentative, but I take issue with Microsoft either having a long tail, or being profitable, because they’ve never done either. They’ve never made a dime in this business, number one, and number two, they’ve never had a tail. They’ve never been successful enough to have a tail! So the notion of a back half of the curve doesn’t exist for them,” Peter told Gamasutra.

Peter further commented on Sony’s success with the PlayStation brand, and the company’s ability to maintain a lasting console cycle, and how it contrasts with Microsoft, “They stopped the Xbox and I kind of feel for the guy that bought an Xbox the month before they said ‘we’re out of business, we’re moving on.’ The reason I get a little emotional about that is it’s in stark contrast to our approach. If we’ve got something that says PlayStation, we’re going to stand behind it for 10 years, and deliver games like God of War II in the 7th year of the cycle.”

And with plenty of momentum currently swinging in Sony’s favour with its strong E3 outing and the recent price-drop for the PS3, Peter ended by commenting on the Xbox 360, “With the Xbox 360 you’ve got an inconsistent design, some have a hard drive, some don’t, and none of them have Blu-Ray, and the HD DVD will be out of business in a matter of months. Is this a 10 year product? And by the way it doesn’t even work. Do they want to be selling it for 10 years and refurbishing them all for 10 more years? I don’t think that’s a 10 year product. You could disagree with me, or they could disagree with me, but I’d put that up against the PS3 any day.”

Certainly strong criticism, though it isn’t at all surprising considering that Microsoft has recently devoted over US$1 billion to deal with hardware problems with the Xbox 360.