Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[Nesh]

How do you define limited? 10's of millions of unique households in the US alone are technically capable of benefiting from these features. Many more than the PS4 and XBONe will sell combined over the next few years.

Only technically. And not all of them are willing to spend $500 which factors in costs related to gaming and other features they are not interested in.
Not all of them are tech geeks. They are average joes.

What's your guess on how long? How many years? How long of a period of time would these unique features have to remain unique to make them a relevant differentiator.

Can YOU tell for sure?

edit: The funny and paradoxical thing is that the proponents use the argument gamers are less important and that MS is selling this to the average joe that loves to do something as simple as watching TV. There are people in these very forums that themselves said they dont care about its games. They have a PC for that. Yet the thing is sold at a at $500 premium price as both a dedicated gaming machine and an entertainment device that requires (to make things even more complicated) also a cable/satellite box and will do lots of things the average joe wont care much.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I wouldn't buy a product in the hopes they may someday add a feature. Until announced I would assume never.

 

[Nesh]

HDMI in through receivers has been the norm. people understand routing their av devices through another system to make controls easier.. the rise of the AvForums website last decade is a testament to people looking for better ways to control and manage their entertainment.

Yes they are called TVs

 

[blakjedi]

Yes they are called TVs

They are actually called audio visual receivers.

 

[Nesh]

They are actually called audio visual receivers.

You are living in a different dimension if you think this is the norm.

edit: Oh and btw...an AVR can have multiple devices connected with it. The XBOne? Just one. It is not an AVR replacement. Those who already have an AVR to have multiple devices connected, wont find it convenient to have the extra XB1 device either.

 

[temesgen]

My personal preference is to route everything thru my receiver and use a good universal remote to switch between inputs and control each device. Generally speaking I don't want the receiver or the source doing any scaling, I prefer to let the TV do that. That is how both of my TVs are set up, the receiver is there to switch between components (blu ray player, sat box and game console). The receiver handles my audio and passes the video signal to the TV which essentially acts like a monitor - the one exception being scaling, the passthru video seems to get the best results.

 

[blakjedi]

You are living in a different dimension if you think this is the norm.

edit: Oh and btw...an AVR can have multiple devices connected with it. The XBOne? Just one. It is not an AVR replacement. Those who already have an AVR to have multiple devices connected, wont find it convenient to have the extra XB1 device either.

Really? So most TV's have amplifiers to power 5.1 and 7.1 surround systems. I think you are the one in wrong dimension. What you are saying doesn't even make sense.

People (will) understand that you can now pipe your TV through the Xbox instead of using two inputs on the TV. In fact, that just saved them an extra input. Once they see it, they'll get it.

I think you are trying to make a point for the sake of doing it. An HDMI in, in America, which brings all of your entertainment under a single interface makes sense. Today in 2013/2014. No one else is doing it.

 

[mrcorbo]

You cant define how "near" this will be either.
Nobody before talked about this feature acknowledging it will be temporarily unique until somebody had brought it into the picture.

Nobody?

Quoting myself regarding HDMI-In from Post #1613 in this very thread.

The fact that most US households have a STB allowed MS to use the HDMI-in & IR blaster as a shortcut to bring live TV to this market. I expect that this is just a temporary solution until MS can work things out with the various companies in charge of content delivery (cable/satellite/IP) to provide those capabilities through the XBOne itself. If, as has been represented, STBs are not a common delivery method for live TV in the EU, then that shortcut is not available and it will take more time to deliver these services.

In the long term I expect the HDMI-in will be deprecated over time as arrangements are made with the cable/satellite/etc. providers and that MS will be pursuing these negotiations worldwide. Eventually, it should be possible for there to be a fair amount of parity in the services available in the major global markets.

That having been said, it's of course perfectly reasonable to not see the appeal of services that aren't available to you.

And the converse of that last point it is perfectly reasonable to find services that are currently available to you more appealing than services that may, someday, be available to you.

To the contrary its touted as something that will be a decisive permanent factor to make a purchase as a first adopter and that will make the XB1 more attractive than competition indefinitely.

Did someone ever make that specific point?

Many will make the $500 investment now being sure this will be a permanently unique feature whereas if they knew this wouldnt be the case they would have double questioned the decision.

I don't believe that most who would be buying the system at launch based on these features even think about whether the features are permanently exclusive. I suspect you are projecting your own sensibilities onto others.

MS are the first movers but only for a handful of people at this point.

I find the terms you are using to quantify some of these groups to be incredibly self-serving towards supporting your own viewpoint and unrepresentative of reality. A "handful"?

Would the non gamer spend $500 for it?

I expect this group is relatively small. I could envision a larger composite group, though, of gamers who also find these features appealing or who feel that other members of their family would enjoy them or non-gamers that find the features appealing and that have other members of their family who would enjoy the gaming capabilities.

How about later when it will be cheaper?

Probably a larger group.

How about competition? If this is a temporal competitive advantage, down the line the consumer will have to chose between products with almost identical features, with the difference that one will be more powerful and will provide accessibility to a similar feature for a market that is not required to have additional devices. So what will be left? If you want to be myopic and care about the short term its your problem. But for me and many others who are perceiving the consoles as a long term investment and are considering to be early adopters we are factoring that in. The later adopters will respond in accord to the future iterations of the consoles which will be closer in terms of non-gaming features unless MS manages to expand the One through Win 8 apps and Sony doesnt have a similar ability.

It is literally impossible to predict how the value proposition will change for these consoles over time.

 

[wco81]

Son one thing that's unusual about this launch is that there are sales on the games.

Amazon and Target are offering Buy 2, get 1 free promotion at launch and other retailers are offering not as good deals to get you to buy 3 games.

You would think with pent-up demand and inability to meet the demand with supplies of the console hardware, there would be no rush to do what is effectively a 33% price cut, which is a big contrast from the last console launch, where games went from $50 to $60.

Maybe this action suggests that the industry is a bit nervous about the threat that mobile gaming represents?

 

[mrcorbo]

Can YOU tell for sure?

No. I do know, though, that the corporations that control the production and distribution of content are very rigidly against changing the status quo as they very much believe that protecting their entrenched business models is in their best interest. It will take a product with significant market share to convince them to provide comparable support for a new model and risk disrupting the existing one - one that is very favorable to both the content producers and the cable/satellite companies.

The funny and paradoxical thing is that the proponents use the argument gamers are less important and that MS is selling this to the average joe that loves to do something as simple as watching TV.

I don't think that is the argument. At least it is not the one I would make. The argument I would make is that it is no longer viable to attempt to appeal *only* to gamers. These consoles need to appeal to a broader market to be financially viable.

There are people in these very forums that themselves said they dont care about its games. They have a PC for that. Yet the thing is sold at a at $500 premium price as both a dedicated gaming machine and an entertainment device that requires (to make things even more complicated) also a cable/satellite box and will do lots of things the average joe wont care much.

Their perception of value is different from yours (and mine). There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[mrcorbo]

Son one thing that's unusual about this launch is that there are sales on the games.

Amazon and Target are offering Buy 2, get 1 free promotion at launch and other retailers are offering not as good deals to get you to buy 3 games.

You would think with pent-up demand and inability to meet the demand with supplies of the console hardware, there would be no rush to do what is effectively a 33% price cut, which is a big contrast from the last console launch, where games went from $50 to $60.

Maybe this action suggests that the industry is a bit nervous about the threat that mobile gaming represents?

I think the threat, to retailers, of day-one digital downloads is more likely.

 

[wco81]

That's the other thing, remember taht we heard EA and other publishers were going to drop the online passes for used games?

So if this is confirmed, then retail games still can be traded and the buyer of used games don't have to worry about paying more to go online or play other sectings of the game?

 

[-tkf-]

I assume Shifty was unfamiliar with the above. I was too, actually, though it doesn't surprise me.

Yes, but Shifty's point was those people would be able to take advantage of the XBOne's HDMI. So you're not really rebutting anything he said with that.

I don't think so. What use cases do you see where you would need to use the overlays from both at the same time? I'm pretty sure the XBOne's ability to interact with the DVR functionality of STBs will be limited if it exists at all.

The overlay from the xb1 would potentially hinder the use of the DVR cable box or whatever it's called. And the way a ir blaster works would imho make it very tough for Microsoft to implement anything but the most primitive functions for many of these boxes. Since they have their own graphical user interface face that you navigate in order to simply use it.

And to top it off, there is also on demand services.

I know that Germany has a lot ota tv, Sweeden has boxer which also is ota, and someone mentioned the UK. So there is plenty of examples where STB is not the norm. It's going to be interesting to see if Microsoft advertises these features heavily in Europe , I have a feeling it would backfire in the media.

 

[AlphaWolf]

It'd be fairly simple to map kinect to dvr controls as they use very simplistic controls.

 

[-tkf-]

It'd be fairly simple to map kinect to dvr controls as they use very simplistic controls.

Absolutely, that is for some of the controls, but navigating a graphical interface won't work. So there will still be another remote on the desk and some of these boxes are classic overburdened hardware with to many functions and to little power, making them on occasion slow and unresponsive.

Is STB boxes in the USA just primitive dumb channel switchers?

 

[-tkf-]

That's news to me. i've never heard of anyone recording TV from their TV. Never seen it as an advertised feature either.

It's a feature in most TV's today.
Panasonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPcDo0tt9lM
Samsung
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr9BQi_jvXM
LG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEfuPPPx4rQ
Sony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bOuMGFk-cY

Afaik the recordings are often crypted in some way so it's not so easy to get off the harddrive.

I do get the feeling though that the need for recording is getting reduced, to many channels, to much crap and to many re-runs and ways to see things again makes it less "needed". And the timeshift functions in many of the current service providers does make it less important.

With that being said, i have been looking for a way to record my DVB-T signal in a way that made it easy for me to copy the recordings to my PC, Tablets etc, simply for the kids. I tried with a cheap DVBT box, it failed hard. Tried with Windows Media Center, best option but still not easy, and to expensive to have running.... still looking

 

[Brad Grenz]

Plus it's not inconceivable that Roku or Apple or some other company will add voice commands for TV control for a fraction of the cost.

Roku has an app for iOS and Android that already allows voice commands, I believe. Comcast has added that to their X1 DVR too. It's a pretty short jump to just add a cheap mic array to the hardware to allow it directly.

 

[Mianca]

Really? So most TV's have amplifiers to power 5.1 and 7.1 surround systems. I think you are the one in wrong dimension. What you are saying doesn't even make sense.

People (will) understand that you can now pipe your TV through the Xbox instead of using two inputs on the TV. In fact, that just saved them an extra input. Once they see it, they'll get it.

I think you are trying to make a point for the sake of doing it. An HDMI in, in America, which brings all of your entertainment under a single interface makes sense. Today in 2013/2014. No one else is doing it.

Enabling customers to make any device the central entertainment hub in their living room seems to be the golden rule of most living room entertainment devices, though - which just creates A LOT of redundancy in that field. Discussing whether Smart TVs or AVRs already offer the better functionality to serve as primary HDMI-hubs is kind of futile - the real message is: both potentially do.

Which is to say: the value proposition of an HDMI-in port in a gaming console is drastically diminished by the fact that it just adds another option to combine and manage your home entertainment devices. If you already own an AVR with 5 HDMI inputs and a Smart TV with 4 HDMI inputs, having another device to route your HDMI signals through just adds complexity.

That being said, I do see where Microsoft is coming from with their approach and I do realize they want to make their box that ONE entertainment hub in the living room - but for what they intent to achieve, XBOX One just doesn't do enough: You'll still need an external cable receiver for TV, an AVR to drive your 5.1 sound system and an HDTV as display. As a result, you'll probably still end up with three different remote controls on your coffee table - PLUS Kinect to manage your XBOX One's overlay ...

Not saying there aren't some scenarios where XBOX One can actually make a lot of sense as a primary media hub (e.g. when you don't own an AVR and/or your Smart TV isn't that smart) - but it's certainly not the revolutionary must-have-hub-device they're promoting it to be. As a matter of fact, given the heavy emphasis they put on TV, I'm really surprised they don't at least have a second XBOX One SKU with internal TV receivers for launch.

As it stands, my best guess is that most of that hub-functionality will be soaked up by Smart TVs over time - given that Samsung has been shipping TVs with Kinect-like controls for some time and SONY is heavily working on adding games to their already existing streaming services.

As a matter of fact, given their unique position as a company with a very broad range of entertainment / home cinema devices (TVs, gaming devices, home audio, etc.) and corresponding content-specific sub-divisions (music, movies, gaming) - it would actually be very natural for SONY to eventually evolve their TVs into all-encompassing media hubs. Still waiting for that REAL Playstation-TV that incorporates PS4 hardware ... or at least some "Playstation ready" BRAVIAs that ship with VITA-TVish streaming capability out-of-the-box - now that could really reduce device complexity and remote control madness in many living rooms ...

 

[Phil]

As a matter of fact, given their unique position as a company with a very broad range of entertainment / home cinema devices (TVs, gaming devices, home audio, etc.) and corresponding content-specific sub-divisions (music, movies, gaming) - it would actually be very natural for SONY to eventually evolve their TVs into all-encompassing media hubs. Still waiting for that REAL Playstation-TV that incorporates PS4 hardware ... or at least some "Playstation ready" BRAVIAs that ship with VITA-TVish streaming capability out-of-the-box - now that could really reduce device complexity and remote control madness in many living rooms ...

Exactly. I actually think Kinect would be a more powerful device and closer to its revolutionary vision if Microsoft found a way to licence their chip + camera tech to TV and AVR makers. But as a box that is reliant on other competing devices to be hooked up to that same TV, I'm not sure it can do enough. What they should have aimed to do, was to aim to become the next OS for TVs, like Android is advancing to become on smart devices.

 

[-tkf-]

Well well, i had no idea..

http://kotaku.com/welcome-to-the-amazon-playstation-network-store-1462747295

"You read that headline right. We're very excited to introduce the Amazon Playstation Network Store, an alternate venue to purchase digital Playstation content for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and Playstation Vita."

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=1289533011