Summary: Microsoft adopts a suicidal approach to making a comeback

Windows Mobile is already struggling for survival as its small (single-digit) market share continues to fall. Microsoft seems determined to make this platform even less appealing by elevating the cost of Windows Mobile-compatible software. From one among many reports:

Microsoft Doesn't Want Its App Marketplace To Be A Dollar Store

[...]

During a developer camp hosted by Microsoft yesterday at its Redmond headquarters, a mobile exec instructed developers to not be shy when it comes to pricing your applications, reports TechFlash.

Helping people in a bad economy? That's not on Microsoft's mind.

Microsoft to increase 360 Arcade price in UK, retailers confirm

[...]

Retailers have told Eurogamer that Microsoft will increase the price of the Arcade Xbox 360 bundle to GBP 159.99 (from GBP 129.99) starting September 1. The five XBLA games will no longer be included in the bundle, either.

With a very high failure rate and other major issues, Xbox 360 is heading the wrong way. Now comes Sony with another challenge (on top of the Wii, which has already given Microsoft a headache):

Pachter: PS3 Price Drop May Force Microsoft To Act

[...]

We think it might be the latter; video game consumers are a savvy group, as history has proven, and when a logical, rational-minded individual sets out to buy a new game console and sits down to compare the PS3 and 360, the combination of the new price, Blu-Ray, better exclusives, better reliability ratings, and free Network ought to steer them towards Sony's machine.

Hardware and Microsoft just don't seem to blend. Microsoft keeps renaming products like embedded Windows and Live Search, but this is not a solution, it's wishful thinking. Brand-dodging may even be Microsoft's strategy with Windows Mobile and it is already the strategy adopted for Vista 7 (Microsoft calls it "Windows 7" although it is just "Vista extended"). More on that in the next post. ⬆