[Canyarion]

Hehe very good article. I'll outline some strong arguments:

The company's continuing losses on Xbox hardware sales and resultant bleeding of investment in the current generation is something it would obviously like to stem as soon as possible; after all, while Nintendo and Sony are reaping huge profits from this generation, it's easy to see why Microsoft, bleeding cash with every Xbox sold, would be champing at the bit in its eagerness to move on.

The belief within Microsoft's top Xbox executives is that the main reason that Xbox has failed to seriously challenge the PlayStation 2 is because Sony had first mover advantage....

The single biggest problem is that developing for Xbox 2 is going to be a major leap for game creators - and Microsoft is effectively asking them to make that leap while the current generation is still profitable, and the biggest contender in the next generation is still years away.

In other words, studios are being asked to invest in next-generation R&D two years before it's required for PS3, and to spend more money developing an Xbox 2 version of a cross platform title - for an audience of a few million people - than they'll spend developing all three current-generation versions of the game - for an audience of well over a hundred million.

Good point.