Xbox One

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

And "free-to-play" cash MMO games have existed for decades. Do you honestly think it's a new trend? Do you know how old games like Maple Story are?
A console does not have to be the best seller to succeed. In fact, Nintendo hasn't been #1 since the SNES days. They still made massive profits with the Wii.
The PS3 however did not, as many others have already mentioned.
The Wii also had its share of core games (Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, etc), even if it lacked the third party support they had in the past. Just because you shelved it does not mean billions of others did.
Lacking core games is an issue for the Wii U however, though that's a subject for another thread.

A single game doesn't constitute a trend, go back a few years and look at games that are using F2P model and you noticed it's limited to mostly to Asian MMORPGs. Western games were still very much limited to B2P and subscription model. Nowdays, we have games that are released as F2P right off the bat instead of being converted from subscription model when they aren't retaining enough subscribers to remain profitable.

PS2 was sold at loss as well but still became dominant and profitable due to platform royalty from games sold, massive game library and install base. Not saying Wii is a failure which it isn't but it didn't manage to continue it's early dominance throughout it's lifespan.

VGchartz.
You can see while Wii still had the highest amount of console sold for the last generation, Xbox360 and PS3 manage to hang onto a sizeable piece of the last gen market. In comparison with the previous generation where PS2 was overwhelming dominant and much to my surprise... still remain the best selling console in history.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Of course it failed. It lost massive money, for crying out loud. How is that not a commercial failure?

The console gaming industry is in a tight bind right now because they refuse to keep their production costs down to a reasonable level.

You might want to read through his methodology and look at the assumptions he is using to come up with his prediction. It's not an actual financial report from Microsoft and Sony's console division.

Can't access his google doc to see the actual numbers but his assumptions is flawed to begin with when he solely focus on initial loss per system at launch and total console sold.

FYI, PS3 have been profitable since 2010 and god knows when did Xbox360 production efficiency broke margin considering PS3 was much more expensive to produce at the start. There's also xbox live and PSN+ subscription and purchase revenue to account for. Apparently, Xbox Live sub was very lucrative for Microsoft.

Also he's pulling numbers from AAA titles only and using assumption that the majority of the market purchase those titles only. That's a rather big assumption considering the number of titles released each year for all consoles.

[sa547]

Has anyone factored in the people who use smartphones or tablets? Or handhelds? This audience is considered casual by gamer standards, but then I think forward-thinking game developers sees these casual players as the more profitable and accessible market, which some of them eschew traditional consoles or PCs as being too "hardcore", expensive or difficult to use.

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by sa547

Has anyone factored in the people who use smartphones or tablets? Or handhelds? This audience is considered casual by gamer standards, but then I think forward-thinking game developers sees these casual players as the more profitable and accessible market, which some of them eschew traditional consoles or PCs as being too "hardcore", expensive or difficult to use.

Nintendo tried to cater to those people with the wii.

What I already explained earlier, is that the casual gamers are not really a stable consumer base to build a game company on. There might be more of them, but they are also less willing to spend money. They also are less likely to have brand loyalty, and also do not care to purchase upgrades.

The view that "the market is bigger thus = more money to be made" is a false fantasy. You are talking about trying to entice people who have no intention of spending their disposable income on gaming, you had to fight with every other forms of entertainment for their dollars. Compare to that, gamers are loyal if you treat them right, and they are the type who come back for sequels.

[Sides]

Originally Posted by sa547

Has anyone factored in the people who use smartphones or tablets? Or handhelds? This audience is considered casual by gamer standards, but then I think forward-thinking game developers sees these casual players as the more profitable and accessible market, which some of them eschew traditional consoles or PCs as being too "hardcore", expensive or difficult to use.

Most people who play on smartphones or tablets, do it for a different reason, mainly to kill time, where as "gamers" do it for recreational purposes.
People who use their phones and tables to play games are actually different than the Wii and kinect crowd, and not worth casing after. Wii (sports, jumba, aso) and kinect only buyers bought it just for one or two games, however the phone gamers didn't buy their phones for games, big difference. So even in "casual" gamers segment, gamers are split into different markets.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

The point of the 24 hour check in is to ensure that the console actually goes online sometime to receive that message. The system doesn't work if the console doesn't come online.

So simply require the owner of the game to come online if he wants to sell his game (make this a necessary part of the procedure for selling used games). That does not necessitate the 24 hour check-in for everybody, all the time.

Furthermore, as I've point out earlier in this thread, it's well within Microsoft's technical ability to track every single thing you do on your computer. They don't.

How do you know they don't?

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

You might want to read through his methodology and look at the assumptions he is using to come up with his prediction. It's not an actual financial report from Microsoft and Sony's console division.

If you want to nitpick over that article, fine, I'll give you another one.

There are no shortages of articles on the internet talking about the absolutely massive amounts of money that the PS3 lost for Sony. I'm very skeptical that they're ever going to make that up entirely, especially now with the next gen on the horizon.

PS3 was a commercial failure for Sony.

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

How do you know they don't?

For one, you have root access on a Windows 7 PC, so if you know what you're doing it's pretty easy to keep Microsoft from knowing what you're doing.

Secondly, you could always use Linux and then Microsoft wouldn't know a thing. (Saying this as I type this post from my Thinkpad running Linux Mint 14...)

(Yes, I do use W7 on my desktop because it's necessary at this point to play most PC games.)

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So simply require the owner of the game to come online if he wants to sell his game (make this a necessary part of the procedure for selling used games). That does not necessitate the 24 hour check-in for everybody, all the time.

Doesn't work that way. Remember: the used games concession is there to appease gamestop an other game retailers, not consumers. And people will not bring their consoles to the store just to plug it in and deactivate the game.


The only way to make such a system work is through mandatory checkins. Any other solution is too intrusive to effectively work. One could, for instance, have an uninstall feature on the system that would check in with the server to note the deactivation of the system but that would be adding a new step the buyers would have to go through before selling the game and I can guarantee you that it would cause major backlash the moment the first mom tried to trade in a game.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

If you want to nitpick over that article, fine, I'll give you another one.

There are no shortages of articles on the internet talking about the absolutely massive amounts of money that the PS3 lost for Sony. I'm very skeptical that they're ever going to make that up entirely, especially now with the next gen on the horizon.

PS3 was a commercial failure for Sony.

It's a prediction, there's a very big difference using predictions and factual data to represent your point.

I've read through some of Sony's financial report, there's no breakdown of the numbers in the Games section and they are doing some very odd things by mixing in other division like Vaio, LCD, audio, video, tablet into the Games section post 2009. Though Sony on the whole as a corporation isn't and hasn't been doing well the past few years with the rise of Samsung in the TV business and their other electronic catalog facing strong competition.

Same thing with Microsoft financial report though Microsoft as a corporation is far healthier than most considering how entrenched they are within business IT solution. Other than having actual access to their finance, it's going to be very hard to say whether certain product within their catalog is generating profit or not which I doubt anyone not working within the company or auditing them have access to due to investor interest.

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

So simply require the owner of the game to come online if he wants to sell his game (make this a necessary part of the procedure for selling used games). That does not necessitate the 24 hour check-in for everybody, all the time.

What if I have the game installed on more than one console? Like a friend's console? What if my console dies or I lose contact with the friend for a while?

Second, if the game checks in every 24 hours, they know if you're frequently logging in from friend's consoles. Which is useful for detecting abuse of the ability install and play (without a disc after the install!) on friend's consoles so long as that console is logged onto your account.

Third, implementing this scheme for DRM purposes is totally believable in a world where Assassin's Creed II on PC dropped you out of the game without saving as soon as you lost the connection to the server on launch for DRM purposes. So yes, I believe that it's being put in for DRM purposes, because PC gamers have been here before.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

How do you know they don't?

1) They couldn't keep the specs of this console from leaking months in advance - no surprise to anyone who tracks leaks in the tech industry. How do you expect them to be able to keep it from leaking that they were selling such market data?

2) It would have been picked up by the army of security experts involved in programing firewalls, finding and patching exploits, etc. The prestige of breaking news of it alone would be too tempting for many of these guys to resist.

[Triple_R]

@0utf0xZer0

I have a new question for you, since you seem convinced that Microsoft is on the up-and-up here.

Why exactly does the camera and microphones have to be on all the time (and recording everything it catches, from what I've read) when using the XBox One? Then when you combine that with the every 24 hours internet check-in...

As a friend of mine said "There is such a thing as being properly paranoid".

Originally Posted by Dextro

The only way to make such a system work is through mandatory checkins. Any other solution is too intrusive to effectively work. One could, for instance, have an uninstall feature on the system that would check in with the server to note the deactivation of the system but that would be adding a new step the buyers would have to go through before selling the game and I can guarantee you that it would cause major backlash the moment the first mom tried to trade in a game.

Well, we're seeing major backlash right now over the 24-hour internet check-in "feature". I don't see how that's any way preferable to ticking off "the first mom" a few months down the line, after the console has already been bought.

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

It's a prediction, there's a very big difference using predictions and factual data to represent your point.

The numbers/estimations used in the first article I linked to seemed fairly reasonable to me, but perhaps there are some issues with it, in fairness to you.

In any event, the second article I linked you to includes factual financial data reported by Sony itself.

I've read through some of Sony's financial report, there's no breakdown of the numbers in the Games section and they are doing some very odd things by mixing in other division like Vaio, LCD, audio, video, tablet into the Games section post 2009.

My guess is that they're trying to mask just how badly they did with the PS3. So they're throwing all this other stuff into it to try to obscure that.

[kenjiharima]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/zo7vWd1ZNKQ

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[takai]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/...-talk-tv-at-e3

Called it. It was really smart what Microsoft did actually. In the first conference they said the name, showed what it looked like, and showed what it can do entertainment wise. And then at E3 it's going to be nothing but games. This was actually great planning by Microsoft. Unlike Sony who is going to be explaining multiple different things other than games, which will most likely result to a poor E3 showing.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by takai

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/...-talk-tv-at-e3

Called it. It was really smart what Microsoft did actually. In the first conference they said the name, showed what it looked like, and showed what it can do entertainment wise. And then at E3 it's going to be nothing but games. This was actually great planning by Microsoft. Unlike Sony who is going to be explaining multiple different things other than games, which will most likely result to a poor E3 showing.

Really? You only have one chance to make a first impression and Microsoft blew it big time. Even if they wanted to talk about their other entertainment features, they should have brought more game related stuff than what they had.

Even if Sony is explaining multiple things it's still going to be all about games... Okay, mostly about games, but certainly it's going to be things that gamer would care more about than TV-Sport-TV.

Right now Microsoft's reputation is in the gutter, and you call that great planning?

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Really? You only have one chance to make a first impression and Microsoft blew it big time. Even if they wanted to talk about their other entertainment features, they should have brought more game related stuff than what they had.

Even if Sony is explaining multiple things it's still going to be all about games... Okay, mostly about games, but certainly it's going to be things that gamer would care more about than TV-Sport-TV.

Yeah, I think that kind of reply is just being overly optimistic. Microsoft blew the first impression and E3 is going to be an uphill battle to get back into the good graces of some people.

It's not like Sony avoided talking about what the system can do and will mix up it's E3 presentation with it. Not going to take long to simply show the box. Neither side can focus solely on the games since they still need to talk about things like pricing and possibly release dates.

No doubt Sony has the advantage right now. They can focus on the games and simply avoid possible pitfalls.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Actually, what else is there for Sony to talk about other than revealing the console and more games? Didn't they get the other features out of the way already?

(I guess they should also make a clear stance on what are their plans regarding used games and online DRM)

[Vajra]

Originally Posted by takai

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/...-talk-tv-at-e3

Called it. It was really smart what Microsoft did actually. In the first conference they said the name, showed what it looked like, and showed what it can do entertainment wise. And then at E3 it's going to be nothing but games. This was actually great planning by Microsoft. Unlike Sony who is going to be explaining multiple different things other than games, which will most likely result to a poor E3 showing.

Yea maybe the hardcore Microsoft/Xbox followers will undoubtedly be wowed by MS's E3 showcase because of Halo and possibly Fable IV/remake, but a lot of gamers are wise to M$'s anti-consumer campaigning they've been doing so far with the XBO. I love my 360, but no way in hell am I buying an Xbox 1 for the purposes of supplying advertisers OR Microsoft with private information and with the always online, no/limited carbon purchases, no renting/selling/trading of games, etc-- it's wayy too much of a commitment just for a "gaming console", heck it's more like a matrimonial/prenuptial contract than an end:user agreement.

[Nightengale]

At the core of it all, what other stuff does Sony need to show anyway?

They're not going to match XBONE in terms of US Live TV integration, Kinect, PC-lite features (Bing/IE/etc) as well as the multi-tasking/tabbing. (the so-called three OS feature)

But those aspects of the XBONE are highly about usability & versatility. It's much less about what they have, but rather how it's controlled. And 'control' is very subjective, you may or may not like it.

In my personal capacity, I'm personally not going to play a video-game, while having a 'tab' of Skype or GameFAQs open on one side. It'll ruin my immersion. I'd much rather use my tablet by my side if I need to be 'distracted' by a 2nd screen, not pop up a 2nd mini-screen on the TV while I'm playing.

But content-wise? PS4 is definitely going to have all the content apps like Netflix, etc. The interface would be different, but aside from that, PS4 is not going to be inferior in the depth of multimedia content. (aside from the NFL and exclusive XBONE stuff, but Sony will have theirs too in some form. )

The various pros & cons aside, it still boils down to the games, imo.

[Chaos2Frozen]

...I'm occasionally guilty of the Gamefaqs part

B-But only for trophy hunting!

[demino_hellsin]

Wait... so you'll get gamefaqs on how to get all the TV achievements? *headscratch*

[Dextro]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

@0utf0xZer0

I have a new question for you, since you seem convinced that Microsoft is on the up-and-up here.

Why exactly does the camera and microphones have to be on all the time (and recording everything it catches, from what I've read) when using the XBox One? Then when you combine that with the every 24 hours internet check-in...

As a friend of mine said "There is such a thing as being properly paranoid".

Because it's the only feasible way to make the console wakeup on demand with a voice command for instance. And Kinect is mandatory to avoid the same pitfall they fell into on the 360: optional, non-bundled peripherals are NOT used by majority of games. Microsoft wants games to use the bloody thing so they do everything they can to make sure everyone has one functional.

Occam's Razor: the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Well, we're seeing major backlash right now over the 24-hour internet check-in "feature". I don't see how that's any way preferable to ticking off "the first mom" a few months down the line, after the console has already been bought.

Because a bunch of gamers whining over this is nowhere near as bad as having moms show up on fox news complaining about the next "sexbox". As much as gamers whine plenty of them will still buy the bloody thing. On top of that the regular consumer probably won't even notice the used games thing since he'll still be able to pick up his kids copy of Madden and trade it in to buy the next one at Gamestop.