Xbox 360 prototype worker switches to Sony PS3

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Xbox 360 prototype worker switches to Sony PS3

We all know that the Xbox 360 hardware has had more problems than the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 combined, RROD has become a joke and also public debate of why it happened.

The Xbox 360 does a lot right on the software front, but many news sites have long guessed that Microsoft rushed the 360 to beat the Sony PS3 to the market.

Today we have had some information sent in from someone who goes by the name of “Chris” and claims to of worked on the original Xbox 360 prototypes back in 2004.

They say that Microsoft’s biggest mistake was launching the 360 a year earlier than the PS3 and it’s this reason why there have been so many hardware issues.

The thing that jumps out at me, as I’ve noticed since launch, is that the PS3 costs much more than $400, $500, even $600 to produce, yet Sony still sells the console for less, and it’s all for the consumer.

I actually worked with Microsoft on the original Xbox 360 prototypes back in 2004, and, despite the accumulated cost of the hardware, Microsoft increased the price of retail sale above the production cost.

By the 360’s launch, I was a bit ashamed to see that the Xbox 360 was so expensive even though it was cheap to produce, and that’s when several other Microsoft devs in my group and I were surprised to see that the PS3 launched at only $600.

As a developer, I was really curious about each console’s hardware, and if we had put the Playstation 3’s hardware in our original Xbox 360 prototype, it would have cost well over $700.

The Playstation 3 consists of well over $750, but I’m amazed that Sony can sell the console for $400. In my opinion, that was a very smart move on Sony’s behalf.

Due to work terms, I’ve been prohibited from saying this until early 2008, but Microsoft severely rushed development of the 360, and we had a very short time window to work with in order to launch the 360 a year earlier. That was our, and Microsoft’s, biggest mistake.

As a result, the Xbox 360 has major hardware issues. I switched over to the PS3 when my Xbox 360, the console that I helped develop, RROD’d for the 4th time.

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