What will it take for the XBOX 360 to have a successful year?

As an avid gamer, I'm watching the launch of the new XBOX 360 with a lot of interest. The next generation of console wars has begun. Who will emerge as the market winner?

Will I be getting one right away? No. Based on my long experience with console systems, I have found that it's best to wait a year before buying new console.

What do I look for after that year has passed? Number of games released and the quality of the games.

For Microsoft to be successful I figure that they need to have more than 50 games released by the end of the year. Perhaps more importantly, they need to have at least 2 "gotta have it" games within the next year, but they would be in much better shape if they are able to pull 5 games from their developers that are of such quality and have such a buzz factor that the fact that these games are for the XBOX drives sales of the XBOX. In other words, these have to be kick ass games that aren't available for any other console. Not easy to do.

In order to accomplish all of that Microsoft has to have better than expected sales to the early adopters and they have to do whatever it takes to make their developers happy. The name of the game is to get them writing for your system and not the other guy's.

Anyhow, judging from early XBOX 360 observations from Greg Hughes, the system's performance won't dissappoint.

But then again the console market has never really been about system specs or performance. It's all about the developers and not about the hardware.