While the last-gen console releases saw the Xbox 360 gain almost a one year head start over its PS3 counterpart, some speculate the One should have been delayed. However, Xbox Exec Aaron Greenberg strongly disagrees.
When speaking with the Inner Circle podcast, he states the timing of competing directly in the market with rival Sony was paramount.
“We had to launch head-to-head with them. We didn’t know what they were doing. They didn’t know what we were doing. You assume they’re going to do some things; you get some right and some wrong. But we were pretty focused. The titles we had in development, whether it was Forza 5 or Ryse or any of our launch titles, we felt like we were readys” says Greenberg.
Greenberg also touches on the lofty goals Microsoft had for the Xbox One right out of the gate, which in his mind made their hardware superior to the PS4 (even at the cost of a higher price point).
“We were trying to do a lot more, if you think about Kinect and voice and TV integration. We had perhaps a more ambitious vision. But with that said, no, no one has ever said that we shouldn’t have launched when we did. That we didn’t feel like that was the right time and place. We’re off to a good start, but we have a lot more work to do. We never regretted or felt like we weren’t ready.”
Should the Xbox One have launched without the Kinect right from the start? Do you think the price difference would’ve help that significantly? Let us know in the comments section below.