Microsoft XBOX ONE


Binky said:
Jumpman said:
If I'm playing games, why the fuck do I want to watch TV? That's why I'm playing games!
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Neatly put.
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Sometimes being direct is the most basic way to get your point across :lol:

At the end of the day, "Change" is going to happen if we want it to or not. At one point Nintendo thought CD wasn't ready for the masses, and they couldn't have been more wrong. In 10-20 years, I have no doubt we will no longer be buying physical games. Hell, I haven't seen an instruction manual in over a year(at least with the games I've been buying). 

So I can't be upset about that, but come on MS, are you kidding? Nintendo and Sony are doing it right currently. Offer physical(less qty at retail from Nintendo) and digital games, and try to make the digital more inviting(Sony offers a discount). Sadly, until Nintendo gets a solid account system in place, they might as well be doing this MS crap, but they are currently releasing less games at retail, so many fans have been going with  digital 

I see more and more consumers going the digital route, and I even think about it from time to time, but I like my physical games, as I've collected games my whole life, and it's nice to be able to sell my goods at a later date. I do prefer the ease of use when it comes to digital, but I can't justify paying 59.99 for a digital game and the same cost for a physical game. That's just me though, I know others don't care either way.

You have to wean the public off the tit in the proper way, and I just don't see these MS tactics getting the job done and gaining consumer confidence. You also can't charge the same rates for lesser service.

Chris
 
You guys are just too narrow minded to see the revolutionary and innovative idea that MS have come up with.

A console that connects to your TV , that allows you to watch TV, on your TV.  Genius !
 
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vcoleiro said:
A console that connects to your TV , that allows you to watch TV, on your TV.  Genius !
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Well, the idea does have merit. That's basically why I have a Roku box, to watch TV on my TV without TV. Microsoft is just making it weird.
 
We still havent heard what Sony intends to do with used games. It may very be well that MS and Sony have a pre-arranged agreement on this, just that Sony is not saying it right now. If it's indeed pushed by publishers, I don't see how Sony make their point to differentiate and not lose vs Microsoft from a 3rd party publisher standpoint. 
 
Jumpman said:
Microsoft must high if they think this is going to fly with anyone, anywhere?
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I disagree, just get back a few years, when Spore came out - there was outrage all over the place. Now look at the latest SimCity, there was some small buzz, but people already "adjusted". This will be the same here, an outrage first, some people will boycott it, but the masses will buy it eventually (who wants to be sitting on the sidewalk, if you can't change it anyway). In a few years new generations of gamers will have grown up that don't even know that it was different in the past.
Jumpman said:
You have to wean the public off the tit in the proper way, and I just don't see these MS tactics getting the job done and gaining consumer confidence. You also can't charge the same rates for lesser service.
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Why not ? MS is very successfull with their xbox-Live system for years - you have to pay money to do something that is basically free on every other platform and get thanked for it by getting poured over withs ads.
 
thatgui said:
Jumpman said:
Microsoft must high if they think this is going to fly with anyone, anywhere?
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I disagree, just get back a few years, when Spore came out - there was outrage all over the place. Now look at the latest SimCity, there was some small buzz, but people already "adjusted". This will be the same here, an outrage first, some people will boycott it, but the masses will buy it eventually (who wants to be sitting on the sidewalk, if you can't change it anyway). In a few years new generations of gamers will have grown up that don't even know that it was different in the past.
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It may well happen but this will however result in several things:

- a contraction of the new games sales: There are a number of people (probably a minority) who buy new games after reselling their older ones. The further you put restrictions on what they can do and the price they can get for it, the less they can get money for the next new games they want to buy.

- a contraction of games/gamer figure : I, for one, mostly buy my games used when they reach around 50% of the original sell price, unless I really cannot wait. I know lots of people who only buy games cheap too. So what happens is that we'll end up buying less games and be very careful about the ones we buy. 

- a contraction of console sales: if I can't play as much games as I like because I can't afford enough of them, then I might seriously wonder if the investment in the machine is worth it in the first place. I suspect some people will feel that way. 

Steam certainly does not allow you to sell your game, but games on Steam are cheap enough (if you wait a bit) that I don't consider it a huge issue. 

Net, I predict the console world has peaked, and the next generation will be about survival more than anything else. 
 
ekianjo said:
Net, I predict the console world has peaked, and the next generation will be about survival more than anything else.
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Or cheapness?

ARM + Android HDMI sticks could take a massive chunk out of the casual gaming market
 
Maybe we will see faster update times as opposed to the 8 year gap between Xbox 360 to the One. Cant imagine they could go that long again this round.  Who knows how powerful SOC's will be in 5 years time for example and what SOC game console competition there will be.
 
vcoleiro said:
Maybe we will see faster update times as opposed to the 8 year gap between Xbox 360 to the One. Cant imagine they could go that long again this round.  Who knows how powerful SOC's will be in 5 years time for example and what SOC game console competition there will be.
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No need. The reason why we havent had new consoles for so long is because graphics wont sell consoles much anymore, because the market is now mainstream. Nothing like the 90s market.
 
ekianjo said:
vcoleiro said:
Maybe we will see faster update times as opposed to the 8 year gap between Xbox 360 to the One. Cant imagine they could go that long again this round.  Who knows how powerful SOC's will be in 5 years time for example and what SOC game console competition there will be.
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No need. The reason why we havent had new consoles for so long is because graphics wont sell consoles much anymore, because the market is now mainstream. Nothing like the 90s market.
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Yeah, this is the reality the VG industry currently faces. 

The WiiU was the first new Nintendo system I didn't buy at launch since the NES, and it wasn't so much the lack of games, as it was that it only offered games that the current systems already offer(and cheaper). Now that I've seen samples of what to expect from PS4/One, I'm just not seeing a HUGE difference graphically to warrant 400+ purchases. Sure, they can do more, but I'm not looking at games and thinking, WOW "Tha's so much better than my PS3/360.

Sure, all 3 systems offer new bells and whistles, along with faster basic operations, but I just don't see that being a BIG deciding factor for most. So many former gamers who always went with Sega/Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft are now content with tablets, smart phones etc, and paying 1-5 dollars for games. In my opinion the "saturation" point of gaming has been reached, probably last gen actually. Each new gen, has seen less overall sales than the one before. Now those numbers will erode even further, as the major 3 fight for scraps left by those who are actually "dedicated gamers". 

Now there is sooooooooooo much new technology coming from all sides, all the time, whatever new features these consoles offer really won't do much to spur on new business unless some radical changes are made(cheaper games, consoles, back room exclusives, etc). Look how much less the PS3 sold to the PS2, and it was at market longer. The new gen will probably be even longer in time, and see less sales then the last did.

I agree completely that the 90's market is long gone, and companies need to give up on see those kinds of system sales ever again, unless they come up with a new way for games to be experienced and enjoyed. I hate to tell MS, but watching TV AIN'T IT :p  

So yeah, I see the need to offer "everything" to "everybody", as otherwise there is just no way to compete in this day and age, but the same way arcades died ages ago, due to no longer being able to compete with the home market, current gaming is at a similar "cross roads" and needs to make proper adjustments. The Wii did HUGE numbers, not because it was the biggest and the best, but because it offered a new experience that couldn't be found anywhere else. This new gen, just appears to be more of the same(sorry Nintendo, but the tablet controller isn't going to revolutionize the industry).

Chris
 
I read that as 'most of your console will exist, alongside necessary lumps of your games, on our servers'.

Time for VR?
 
Jumpman said:
So yeah, I see the need to offer "everything" to "everybody", as otherwise there is just no way to compete in this day and age, but the same way arcades died ages ago, due to no longer being able to compete with the home market, current gaming is at a similar "cross roads" and needs to make proper adjustments. The Wii did HUGE numbers, not because it was the biggest and the best, but because it offered a new experience that couldn't be found anywhere else. This new gen, just appears to be more of the same(sorry Nintendo, but the tablet controller isn't going to revolutionize the industry).

Chris
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Honestly, the Wii sold a lot but sold very few games per system. In itself it carries the death of the console-based market. If you compare numbers with the 90s consoles (and I know what I am talking about since I did an extensive article about games sales vs consoles generations a while ago) you can see that for each Playstation 1 sold there were about 6 to 8 games sold. For the Wii, this was fallen to something like 2 to 3 if I remember correctly. What that means is that people just buy a few games for the system and do not use anymore. I think you have probably heard the story of people buying it because of the hype, having fun with it for a couple of months and then progressively leaving it aside. And not using it anymore. 

It's not just about "units sales" it's about "number of active players" in the end to define if a system is very much alive or not. I have a Xbox 360 and a PS3 and a WIi but I have't played any of them for a while and I don't plan to buy any more games for these systems. So, I am not an active player anymore, clearly, no matter if I bought it or not. The same is true for the Pandora, there may be 4000 or 5000 units out there but how many are actually used? Only a fraction, probably.

The point I am trying to make is that the decline of the video games market started already after the PS2, the Wii sold huge numbers but very few games. The real true system which replaced the PS2 in terms of sales and games was the Nintendo DS. But it's obvious that the market value of a Nintendo DS and their games is less than those of PS2 and PS2 games. They are cheaper to make;, therefore require less people, and instead of having the indtustry growing in larger, bigger development team the "mobilization" of the market is like going back to survival farming where resources are not used in a very productive way and you "back" instead of moving forward in game development. Most DS games were poorer than the PS2 games in all areas. But that's what people wanted since the market went there.

Now, the casual games crap is invading tablets and mobile phones, and it's clearly not "video games" as I call it. These are just mostly re-hashes or old concepts, using poorer graphics than what we used to produce years ago, and very few being very innovative in terms of experience at all.

ANd let's not forget that on home consoles there are much less games being made than before. There were thousands of games on PS1 and PS2. On recent consoles, that number will never be reached.

It's clearly a decline - you don't see it in the sales yet, but it's embedded in the industry for a while.

That's probably why they are trying to focus on TV and all the crap like that. They know their revenues on games is going to erode and they need diversification.
 
What that means is that people just buy a few games for the system and do not use anymore. I think you have probably heard the story of people buying it because of the hype, having fun with it for a couple of months and then progressively leaving it aside. And not using it anymore.
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I don't think you can say that at all. With the ease of "opening up" closed consoles and ready availability of pirated software it's impossible to say that users were/are discarding their consoles after only buying a few games and not just downloading them. You really can't use figures from yesteryear against figures for today and compare like for like - everything is different. There's also the availability of legal downloads to the consoles themselves (eg Virtual Console) to consider.

Console and games sales are higher now than ever before. Sure there have been dips recently, but there has been a global recession. Gaming is still one of the highest grossing entertainment industries after books. Admittedly a lot of these sales are for mobile devices and tablets.
 
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ekianjo said:
Jumpman said:
So yeah, I see the need to offer "everything" to "everybody", as otherwise there is just no way to compete in this day and age, but the same way arcades died ages ago, due to no longer being able to compete with the home market, current gaming is at a similar "cross roads" and needs to make proper adjustments. The Wii did HUGE numbers, not because it was the biggest and the best, but because it offered a new experience that couldn't be found anywhere else. This new gen, just appears to be more of the same(sorry Nintendo, but the tablet controller isn't going to revolutionize the industry).

Chris
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It's not just about "units sales" it's about "number of active players" in the end to define if a system is very much alive or not. I have a Xbox 360 and a PS3 and a WIi but I have't played any of them for a while and I don't plan to buy any more games for these systems. So, I am not an active player anymore, clearly, no matter if I bought it or not. The same is true for the Pandora, there may be 4000 or 5000 units out there but how many are actually used? Only a fraction, probably.
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Nintendo has always made money from their hardware sales, and the WiiU is the first that didn't allow them great profits from selling units. This is why they have always had issues with 3rd parties since the N64 days to now. Their making money on hardware, and the 1st party games are the only ones that ever sell in great numbers. Nintendo was completely unprepared for the success of the Wii, and had no clue in how to maintain and expand the huge user based they stumble into. The Wii had some great 3rd party games, and everyone of them sold poorly, and would have been better suited to PS3, 360 or even the DS in some cases.

They really should have set up a quality online infrastructure to go with the Wii's unique gameplay & runaway success, and offered vintage and classic games for 1-3 dollars(even homebrew/Indi titles should have been included), or a monthly service more along the lines of Sony's+, and given free games for the price of admission.

They would still be making money from that service, if they would have done it properly. They can't even make a proper account system to allow games to belong to a user VS. a device. Nintendo really has ZERO hope in this current gen to do anything besides what the N64/gamecube did sales wise. I know their merging R&D in Japan to focus on WiiU/3DS games, but once again, that should have been done years ago. How many great games can we expect from them, that will use "cross play" or some new tech when they just started moving forward with the idea? As usual, Nintendo is to little to late, but they do make some kick ass games(sometimes).

Where as MS and Sony try to copy and improve industry standards, Nintendo refuses to do anything, unless they can say they where the "First". This is killing them, and they need to get off their high horse and realize the industry is now way BIGGER than they are.

I completely agree that long term continual revenue is the way to go, but I just don't see what MS is offering that the others aren't that merit me paying for "live"? Sony and MS are both more reactive than proactive and only seem to come up with innovation once some else does it(complete opposite of what Nintendo does). This is fine, if you can do it well, but they don't. Steve jobs was a master at ripping off others ideas, and then making it seem like a new idea, or that he came up with it in the first place.

Steve Jobs led Apple to greatness "twice" within his career, and although I personally can't stand their products(now), I can say without a doubt, his success was more than a fluke or luck, and they have dominated their market for a very long time. Nintendo, Sony and MS have all had success in gaming to certain degrees, but I wouldn't say anyone CEO/President has built success in the way Apple has, and this is where they have a problem and always will. To many Chiefs, and not enough Indians.

Sadly, Nintendo, MS, or Sony have no clear cut leadership that knows what it means to lead. Their all just bobbing up and down in the ocean going with the current and where it may take them. I'll admit, MS has taken the "Kinect" idea a lot further than Sony took their "Move", and I think by including it with every "1" purchase is a great idea. So I do applaud MS for trying to change the game, as it does need a severe change, but I just don't think it will work out the way they wan't it to.

Chris
 
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