One of the pioneering figures of the video game industry, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, delivered his opinion on how the Xbox 360 and PS3 stack up, and also dismissed Sony’s recent console success as pure luck. Bushnell, speaking to Red Herring, cited why he selected the 360 over the PS3 as the winner in the contest.
Bushnell believes that the marketing strategy Sony,s next gen console is flawed. “I think Sony shot themselves in the foot… there is a high probability [they] will fail. The price point is probably unsustainable [for the average consumer]. It wasn,t anything brilliant that they did. With the PS and PS2 it was timing."
Sony caught another barb in their flank from Bushnell, who referred to the company’s hardware success as an “accident," and stated that that Sony "had the right pricing at the right time [and were] almost the accidental winner. It would not surprise me if a year from now they,ll be struggling to sell one million units."
Combined, the two iterations of the PlayStation console have sold over 210 million units.
According to Bushnell, developers should also strongly reconsider any thoughts about exclusive development for the PS3. "A first party developer would be an idiot to develop for Sony first and not the 360,” he said. Bushnell continued, “I,m very curious and interested in the Nintendo Wii. I think it may expand the market beyond the hardcore.”
Bushnell helmed Atari in its early years, before the brutal console wars of 1980s, and watched as his company–and virtually every competitor–was driven to or near bankruptcy. Atari has since been sold several times, with the latest holder being Infogrames, a French game publisher. Bushnell, not holding back any punches said Atari “really isn,t a part of today,s gaming world in any meaningful way. They lost the cachet of being a leading technology company in the games space.”
