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Stupid, Stupid xBox

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Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#91

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sliverstorm wrote: post #71
GuiA wrote: post #7

"how it is crushing its original console competitors" Previous gen: > Xbox sales: 24 million > PS2 sales: 153 million Current gen: > Xbox 360 sales: 76 million > Wii sales: 100 million > PS3 sales: 70 million (all data from each console's respective Wikipedia) How is it "crushing" its competitors? Otherwise, I bought an XBox360 recently to get the Kinect for openFrameworks hacking and played a little bit with the con…

All the other caveats aside, I'm willing to consider those results "crushing", particularly when it comes to Sony. Yes, Sony and Microsoft are close to parity, but think about how quickly Microsoft got to parity. This is their second console, ever.

But then how many people remember that the PS2 (just the previous generation) was Sony's second console ever?

What was surprising about last generation was how Nintendo kicked everyones butt in the beginning.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#92

Post by theevocater »

Lewisham wrote: post #76
natbro wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know if Apple will enter this market, but I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are about the profit margin as the reason not to. I think they could build a next-generation-console-capable Apple-TV and sell it at or below $199 while keeping their 40% margin. They would sell you each additional wireless controller (and it would be sweetly designed, I suspect) for the standard $79 peripheral cost. The pr…

Apple has never shown itself to have the wherewithal to correctly interface with game development, and I doubt they have any appetite for doing so. They're already doing gangbusters on iOS without any particular help offered, but the market realities of consoles (and, to a certain extent, PCs) are very different. Microsoft's huge win on both PC and Xbox has been their active and aggressive devrel for games, which was…

This would be the one sticking point for me: it seems Apple has never really cared about games, so it is unclear they will start caring.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#93

Post by sjwright »

sliverstorm wrote: post #71
GuiA wrote: post #7

"how it is crushing its original console competitors" Previous gen: > Xbox sales: 24 million > PS2 sales: 153 million Current gen: > Xbox 360 sales: 76 million > Wii sales: 100 million > PS3 sales: 70 million (all data from each console's respective Wikipedia) How is it "crushing" its competitors? Otherwise, I bought an XBox360 recently to get the Kinect for openFrameworks hacking and played a little bit with the con…

All the other caveats aside, I'm willing to consider those results "crushing", particularly when it comes to Sony. Yes, Sony and Microsoft are close to parity, but think about how quickly Microsoft got to parity. This is their second console, ever.

The PS3 is Sony's third console, ever.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#94

Post by InclinedPlane »

clobber wrote: post #47
redblacktree wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this how the console market works? You lose money on console units, but make it back in licensing? Or are you saying that, taking licensing into account, the Xbox still lost money for Microsoft? 2005 and 2007 were a long time ago. Do you know of more recent numbers?

I'm saying they're still losing money. The "lose money on units, make some back on software" model doesn't make economic sense anymore. The second link has recent numbers.

They aren't still losing money. MS makes a profit on console sales now and has for the last few years, and their markup on games and especially on digital goods like xbox live and DLC is quite high.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#95

Post by cek »

chc wrote: post #82
clobber wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what world? Ecomonomics? > The Xbox has been profitable for most of its life No. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmSmlk-Wo4uhdEh...

You just posted a chart detailing a whole division's profits and losses as opposed to the Xbox's. But regardless, it shows that division being a huge loser until two years after the Xbox hits, at which point it magically becomes profitable, until 2012 when the division starts pouring money into Windows Phone, at which point it magically becomes unprofitable again. This is exactly the way I described things. To recap:…

Wong. MS hid the costs of IEB behind revenue transferred in from Windows Media Center (the functionality that allowed Windows Pro & Ultimate to have a higher license fee than Home).

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#96

Post by sliverstorm »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #91
sliverstorm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the other caveats aside, I'm willing to consider those results "crushing", particularly when it comes to Sony. Yes, Sony and Microsoft are close to parity, but think about how quickly Microsoft got to parity. This is their second console, ever.

But then how many people remember that the PS2 (just the previous generation) was Sony's second console ever? What was surprising about last generation was how Nintendo kicked everyones butt in the beginning.

Sure, and the PS2 generally crushed its competition.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#97

Post by recoiledsnake »

Apple isn't making much money at all with the 30% cut of app sales. Their margins are huge on the iDevices. Since XBox is sold near cost, the move to 99c games and apps will just increase the costs needed to approve games while providing little profit or benefit to MS. Increasing the cost of hardware is another option but that's not easy either. Staying at the niche of high end games and including lots of media content is probably the better option.

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#98

Post by [deleted] »

cek wrote: post #95
chc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just posted a chart detailing a whole division's profits and losses as opposed to the Xbox's. But regardless, it shows that division being a huge loser until two years after the Xbox hits, at which point it magically becomes profitable, until 2012 when the division starts pouring money into Windows Phone, at which point it magically becomes unprofitable again. This is exactly the way I described things. To recap:…

Wong. MS hid the costs of IEB behind revenue transferred in from Windows Media Center (the functionality that allowed Windows Pro & Ultimate to have a higher license fee than Home).

[deleted]

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#99

Post by chrisrhoden »

cek wrote: post #95
chc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just posted a chart detailing a whole division's profits and losses as opposed to the Xbox's. But regardless, it shows that division being a huge loser until two years after the Xbox hits, at which point it magically becomes profitable, until 2012 when the division starts pouring money into Windows Phone, at which point it magically becomes unprofitable again. This is exactly the way I described things. To recap:…

Wong. MS hid the costs of IEB behind revenue transferred in from Windows Media Center (the functionality that allowed Windows Pro & Ultimate to have a higher license fee than Home).

[citation needed]

Re: Stupid, Stupid xBox

#100

Post by nemothekid »

sounds wrote: post #74
natbro wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know if Apple will enter this market, but I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are about the profit margin as the reason not to. I think they could build a next-generation-console-capable Apple-TV and sell it at or below $199 while keeping their 40% margin. They would sell you each additional wireless controller (and it would be sweetly designed, I suspect) for the standard $79 peripheral cost. The pr…

With Tim Cook's track record of world class supply chain management it will surely be profitable for them. When the iPod was introduced it didn't compete on tech specs with the other music players. "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." - the famous last words dismissing the iPod. When the iPhone was introduced it did have innovative tech but it was secondary to the overall experience. I'd say when, not if, Ap…

It would be absolutely revolutionary if Apple could do it, and it almost seems too good to be true. If that supply chain was opened to anyone else it would be like getting the power of an xBox 360 at $99, forget the raspberry pi.

Now I am not too keen on the video games industry and an insider might have differ, but I've tried to do my fact checking. In a way the device you described for Apple's target specs is what Nintendo did the Wii - and were hugely successful for. They sold 100s of millions of units, and it wasn't sold at a loss so they minted money. However, despite their huge shipments, only Nintendo enjoyed success. The people who bought the Wii, only bought 1 or 2 games (like WiiFit and WiiSports) and it became incredibly hard for third parties to market big budget games to them. Effectively the 3rd party abandoned Nintendo.

Secondly, if the system is not powerful enough, I believe gamers will reject your platform. I believe this is more important than the "No wireless" issue because gamers are the only ones who will spend $59.99 on a big budget game, and as a result 3rd party companies will suffer. You can't sell Call of Duty at 99 cents, and gamers don't want to play a Call of Duty that looks like it was made in 2002.

So the market, I believe splits into 2 groups - 1.) Average folk, who want the box. 2.) "Gamers", who want the software.

We can already see this today. There are Netflix Machines like the Roku (1.) and consoles (PS3). However I believe that the the console guys (Nintendo/Sony) will eventually win out, because they provided the hardware (the hard part) first. Its relatively simple to get the indie devs on your side - open up the platform. But to get the big budget guys on your side you have to convince them that they won't waste 50 million producing the next CoD because it will be drowned out by the likes of Angry Birds and Temple Run.

Lastly, I am not sold on the fact that Apple will be able to push the same numbers as Sony on Apple TV without "big boy" support. If EA is not going to support your system I don't think the Apple Box will sell as much. (the Apple TV only sold 2.7 mill while PS3 sold 10 times as much). While Apple is known as the company that can sell a brick to the masses, I am not sure they can sell 25 million consoles without some big franchise names at launch.

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