Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

To be honest:
If the PS4 used slow DDR3 ram as video memory, with 30 megabyte of esram, forced a camera. with about 50% less computing power on the video front than it's competitor

Xbox one primarily uses very fast esram for video memory, it has 32 MB of it, and it isn't remotely close to 50% less powerful.

You're not doing yourself any favours, Slim.
 
Xbox one primarily uses very fast esram for video memory, it has 32 MB of it, and it isn't remotely close to 50% less powerful.

You're not doing yourself any favours, Slim.

It primarily uses the DDR3 ram; Xbox One games use gigabytes of videomemory. The 50% was based on a majority of recent, objectively measured* (by DF) games.
But you completely missed my point:

If the PS4 was, even weaker than the Xbox One is, then people would still buy it because of the promise of great studios producing great games for that platform.
Games sell a platform better than power does.
Otherwise, Xbox1 (2001/2002) would have been the greatest selling console of all time instead of the PS2.

*framerate, resolution or a combination

edit: would you agree on 50% less framerate or 50% less resolution then? Also I said "about 50%" so forgive me if the actual shader/ROP/ACE/something difference is 42%
 
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It primarily uses the DDR3 ram; Xbox One games use gigabytes of videomemory. The 50% was based on a majority of recent, objectively measured* (by DF) games.

Buffers primarily go in esram, and the vast majority of BW consuming operations for all video operations take place in the (very fast) esram. The majority of recent games measured by DF don't show X1 as having 50% less GPU.
 
The tone around the ONE is negative for a very good reason, every major idea about the ONE has been reversed, it's now a completely less powerful standard next gen Console.
TV TV TV, 180'd , DRM, 180'd , Kinnect 2, 180'd , Paywall 180'd,
So stupid may be the wrong word, clueless seems better. Imho Microsoft did everything right with the 360 and earned the rewards from that, and they did everything wrong with the generation.

To some degree i am surprised that they sell the numbers they do, they must have a very very strong core audience. I am in it for the technology, i want it for the Kinect 2 and the moneyhat exclusives and i collect consoles. So what i feel for a company has in this case nothing to do with what i spend my money on and i look forward to playing with Kinect 2 and the Halo Remix games.

If Microsoft had stayed with the DRM they originally planned they wouldn't have seen any money from me.

How they are clueless when they can make quick decisions/changes according to their supporters request?

DRM 180'd? right, but that was only a tool to make physical license to digital. Microsoft said they are working on it and I hope they will have find a way to do it properly.

TV TV TV 180'd? No, but they didn't speak about it during E3 2013/2014 conferences which shouldn't be considered as a bad thing:

http://news.xbox.com/2013/11/xbox-one-partners-unveiled
http://news.xbox.com/2014/04/ent-xbox-originals-unveil
http://news.xbox.com/2014/06/ent-new-experiences-coming-to-xbox

Kinect 2 180'd? No, they are selling a SKU without Kinect but they integrated Kinect with XB1 in architectural level before and will support it in future. all they said before was like "We have no plan to unboxing Kinect".

Paywall 180'd? Maybe, but Sony 180'd their PS+ by making it a requirement to play mutiplayer on PS4. So what's wrong with Microsoft?

They did all of those things to make their product better suited for most of it's potentially buyers like you and you are saying that your negative tone is because of their reversal on DRM and other stuff that you like to stick "180'd" label on them (which you didn't like in first place). Your thoughts are not compatible.

Also how can you say that they did everything with 360 right while some of those reversals on XB1 (in your vision) are actually a part of their old 360 policies? Also do me a favor and name those moneyhat exclusives.
 
Paywall 180'd? Maybe, but Sony 180'd their PS+ by making it a requirement to play mutiplayer on PS4. So what's wrong with Microsoft?

With Sony it was know and decided before release that online PS4 gaming would require PS+

A "180" would mean that sony claimed they weren't going to charge for online PS4 gaming, but then decided they would.
Or if they made at a requirement for PS3 and or Psp or PSVita. That would be a "180".

Also, I think that the MS DRM system was excellent: you use the disc to install the game, hold a QR code that came with the game in front of the camera and "bam" the game would be in your digital account as well. Lose the disc? don't worry, just download it. Going to study abroad? Just buy a Xbox One there and download all of your games and content instantly.

Some Xbox fans even claim that you could share your game with 10 friends or family members, all for free.
That really sounds like the best system ever: if you have 10 friends, you could play a new full-priced game almost every month of the year, but you would only pay for 1 game. That kind of service makes PS+ look like a ripoff.
So the Microsoft DRM was great and it's a shame that it didn't take of.
I am guessing publishers were not too happy with the 10 person game sharing, although they would love the "no resale"
 
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Kinect 2 180'd? No, they are selling a SKU without Kinect but they integrated Kinect with XB1 in architectural level before and will support it in future. all they said before was like "We have no plan to unboxing Kinect".
.

That is some mental gymnastics. :rolleyes:
 
How they are clueless when they can make quick decisions/changes according to their supporters request?

DRM 180'd? right, but that was only a tool to make physical license to digital. Microsoft said they are working on it and I hope they will have find a way to do it properly.

TV TV TV 180'd? No, but they didn't speak about it during E3 2013/2014 conferences which shouldn't be considered as a bad thing:

http://news.xbox.com/2013/11/xbox-one-partners-unveiled
http://news.xbox.com/2014/04/ent-xbox-originals-unveil
http://news.xbox.com/2014/06/ent-new-experiences-coming-to-xbox

Kinect 2 180'd? No, they are selling a SKU without Kinect but they integrated Kinect with XB1 in architectural level before and will support it in future. all they said before was like "We have no plan to unboxing Kinect".

Paywall 180'd? Maybe, but Sony 180'd their PS+ by making it a requirement to play mutiplayer on PS4. So what's wrong with Microsoft?

They did all of those things to make their product better suited for most of it's potentially buyers like you and you are saying that your negative tone is because of their reversal on DRM and other stuff that you like to stick "180'd" label on them (which you didn't like in first place). Your thoughts are not compatible.

Also how can you say that they did everything with 360 right while some of those reversals on XB1 (in your vision) are actually a part of their old 360 policies? Also do me a favor and name those moneyhat exclusives.

Because every freaking main feature they had planned for "world domination" they had to backtrack on so fast it does make them look stupid.. sorry CLUELESS. In hindsight i think it actually looks worse than at the time the introduced them because there was this sense that the competition would do many of the same things, clearly Microsoft could not be so stupid, sorry CLUELESS to do it all by themselves.

The real problem (as indicated by others here) is that Microsoft would have done all this crap if they had been able to. It was only when they found out, high up in the ivory tower they have lived in, that they were so wrong it hurt sales, then they changed around and started to make sense.

And as i said before, there is no way i would have supported a product that was designed to take away the basic principle of me owning my own purchased physical goods. And how the hell Microsoft could have thought that one would fly is beyond me.

So the XBOX One is surrounded by negativity thanks to Microsoft themselves, why should gamers think they are suddenly on their side? Microsoft will need to do something extraordinarly if they want to turn the tides. Just look at the Sony and the PS3, it took them years and many small steps to get around the incredible bad launch and Sony arrogance. I would say it took them the PS4 to change things.

Sorry if i ignored your comparison stuff, it's illegal around here :)
 
63% on top of PS4 (GPU only), which should be doable, but making that figure balanced with mem bandwidth, CPU etc. and beefing up the cooling would make it more expensive, but it still wouldn't be as bleeding edge as 360 was back in the day.
 
I think Shifty raised a good point further up above. Power does matter when the two main competitors go head to head, launching within the same timeframe of two weeks. It's not everything though, as Slim points out - games do matter too.

IMO - this is exactly where backwards-compatibility could have played a joker. We may argue in circles when discussing the merits of backwards-compatibility, but if Xbox One had launched with it (opposed to PS4 without), I'm fairly confident the gap that now exists in sales would be smaller. Why? Because you are giving your costumer base (the people that bought and supported the X360) more value for money and an incentive to upgrade without losing game time. Simply buy the new console and continue playing what you've been playing - and sell the next gen games on the premise of bigger/better/newer.

By going without backwards-compatiblity - you are going from <80 million consumers to ZERO. Some might upgrade to your next console despite all the shortcomings because they may... a.) like your controller b.) like the exclusives c.) the direction you've taken with the console d.) look forward to the games that will come - but they certainly won't do it because all the digital investments they've done on your eco-system effectively become worthless the day they decide to upgrade and ditch their old console.

Effectively - Microsoft (and Sony) didn't bind their consumers enough to their console.

This opens the door for consumers to re-assess which console makes sense for them. Many will be thinking - the X360 was fun, but why do I need to upgrade to the next Xbox if the PS4 seems like the better machine to play games and is cheaper too? All their investments are effectively nullfied anyway - the only thing perhaps being the Gold/Silver membership of Live that is cross-platform compatible.

Sony fucked up in the same way too. Lucky for them, they both did. As a PlayStation owner, I also find that one of the strengths of the PlayStation brandname has always been very strong and diverse support. Games and franchises that are exclusive to this console. So while our investments on the PS3/PSN got nullfied when upgrading to next-gen, it still takes a lot of convincing to actually jump the ship to another console.

I see things less strict on the Xbox. While there are lots of exclusive content there as well, I have always viewed the main strength to be multi platform games and shooters. On the X360 at least, you could say that the Xbox got the better share of visuals/framerates. Not this time though. There's still Forza on Xbox, and Halo - and some others - but many of the big hitters are multi platform games.

Next generation, I'm fairly confident that backwards compatibility will play a bigger role. Because if you don't tie your consumers to your platform, you risk them jumping ship. If you give them the value of keeping their investments, it makes the choice of jumping ship more difficult.
 
IMO - this is exactly where backwards-compatibility could have played a joker. We may argue in circles when discussing the merits of backwards-compatibility, but if Xbox One had launched with it (opposed to PS4 without), I'm fairly confident the gap that now exists in sales would be smaller...
That's absolutely true, but that was never in dispute. The question was whether the cost of implementing that BC would be worth it in the long run. In hindsight one could argue that MS should have launched with hardware BC instead of Kinect, but then a more powerful, BC-free console may have done better.
 
I know Sony was able to almost perfectly emulate PS2 games on PS3 in the end (see the excellent Digital Foundry article on this topic). So I am pretty sure that PS2 games on PS4 should have been possible from a computing power perspective.
It would have been a nice gesture of Sony, now that PS2 is officially discontinued, to offer PS2 emulation for disc based games (or PSN bought PS2 titles) for the PS4. Same with PS1 on PS4.

It would offer great value to existing users, and to the PlayStation legacy as well.
Instead they probably just want to make a few bucks streaming PS2 games through PS Now, oh well :(
 
Next generation, I'm fairly confident that backwards compatibility will play a bigger role. Because if you don't tie your consumers to your platform, you risk them jumping ship. If you give them the value of keeping their investments, it makes the choice of jumping ship more difficult.

If BC is important in the next round it will be something different, straight BC really has a uphill battle to fight.

We are seeing an increase in Cross generation titles, did we have the same stuff with PS-->PS3 and XBOX-->360 i simply can´t recall a game that developed and launched on 2 generation consoles at the same time.

So the need for BC to cover new hot titles is smaller than for example during the PS2 era.

More importantly, there is a new business opportunity for remixes "HD´s" versions, Sony sees it as well..
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...eting-wii-owners-who-skipped-ps3-and-xbox-360

Finally most first adopters will have the old generation already.

The new "BC" would be consoles that simply adds the option without the pricetag, simply by being so close in hardware and software that BC would be very easy to support....
 
To be honest:
If the PS4 used slow DDR3 ram as video memory, with 30 megabyte of esram, forced a camera. with about 50% less computing power on the video front than it's competitor; forced TV stuff that isn't even compatible in my country, hell, the console wouldn't even be released yet because the Netherlands, besides being among the richest countries in the world, as well as super Microsoft minded, is apparently a tier 2 country, but anyway..

Even if the PS4 was a weak system like that -hell it could even be 100 euro's more expensive than the hypothetical better other system,
Even then, I would still get it.

You know why? Because of Sony Santa Monica, Media Molecule, Quantic Dream, Polyphony, Naughty Dog, Evolution to name some.
I know they would be capable to come up with excellent games.
Maybe Xbox fans feel the same way, but value studios like
Fable, Bungie 341 studios, Turn 10, ??? well, and all the other 1st party MS studios that created innovative, bafta-winning, genre-defying games.

So yeah, I can totally see a MS- exodus happening :cool: :LOL:
You need power, but above all; you need games.

edit: if a PS4 game is 59.99, and MS could price all the games on their platform at 39.99. I am pretty sure that more people would be able to accept Xbox One as their main platform

You clearly show you are a fan of a console not games with your above statement.
As far as you totally seeing a Ms exodus happening and how it would be cool. Ofcourse thats how you feel. Come on man you really need to open your mind a little. Both consoles will have great exclusives this gen. Both are capable machines that with time will blow last gen visuals out of the water. You know alot of people purchase both consoles and equally enjoy playing the best of what both of them have to offer.
 
To be honest:
If the PS4 used slow DDR3 ram as video memory, with 30 megabyte of esram, forced a camera. with about 50% less computing power on the video front than it's competitor; forced TV stuff that isn't even compatible in my country, hell, the console wouldn't even be released yet because the Netherlands, besides being among the richest countries in the world, as well as super Microsoft minded, is apparently a tier 2 country, but anyway..

Even if the PS4 was a weak system like that -hell it could even be 100 euro's more expensive than the hypothetical better other system,
Even then, I would still get it.

You know why? Because of Sony Santa Monica, Media Molecule, Quantic Dream, Polyphony, Naughty Dog, Evolution to name some.
I know they would be capable to come up with excellent games.
Maybe Xbox fans feel the same way, but value studios like
Fable, Bungie 341 studios, Turn 10, ??? well, and all the other 1st party MS studios that created innovative, bafta-winning, genre-defying games.

So yeah, I can totally see a MS- exodus happening :cool: :LOL:
You need power, but above all; you need games.

edit: if a PS4 game is 59.99, and MS could price all the games on their platform at 39.99. I am pretty sure that more people would be able to accept Xbox One as their main platform

You need power, but above all; you need games.

Late in last gen a media/forum narrative emerged that PS3 was getting the better exclusives the last 2-3 years. Yet, there was really no sales trend to this. PS3 did not experience some late life sales renaissance, really. It's an important point to note. Maybe you cared about Sony's games, but consumers did not, or at least not enough to really move the needle from the established trend going into those last years.

I think the fact 360 had the surfeit power to do slightly better multiplats than PS3, trumped Sony studio's games easily, as a factor in the sales race.

Well I'll beat a dead horse as usual, but the fact MS put out a $499 system with $100+ into Kinect rather than that $100+ into tech, will be a HUGE blow to them this entire gen. They will now have to deal with their own strategic stupidity. Just unlike many of you, I dont see many of MS other missteps as being very relevant or long lasting. DRM? Ok, maybe an issue, but just a temporary one. TV? Misplaced resources imo, but again, temporary. Lack of tech? An issue for as long as Xbox One exists.
 
And as i said before, there is no way i would have supported a product that was designed to take away the basic principle of me owning my own purchased physical goods.

Yet Steam is beloved and has droves of adoring fanboys and almost no detractors...

And physical media is probably eventually on the way out one way or another. It already has been in most media, although games have some areas of unique resistance imo that may allow discs to cling to life longer. Then again, yeah Steam...it's ubiquitous on PC gaming as a proxy for digital only.
 
With Sony it was know and decided before release that online PS4 gaming would require PS+

A "180" would mean that sony claimed they weren't going to charge for online PS4 gaming, but then decided they would.
Or if they made at a requirement for PS3 and or Psp or PSVita. That would be a "180".

Did Microsoft claimed that they weren't going to change XBLG? They introduced XBLG for XB1 before it's lunch and then after 3-4 months they changed (a part of) it. They introduced GwG services in 2013 and no one said it's a 180. It was considered mainly as a change to the service.

Because every freaking main feature they had planned for "world domination" they had to backtrack on so fast it does make them look stupid.. sorry CLUELESS. In hindsight i think it actually looks worse than at the time the introduced them because there was this sense that the competition would do many of the same things, clearly Microsoft could not be so stupid, sorry CLUELESS to do it all by themselves.

So paywall was planed for XB1 world domination? And Microsoft is stupid/clueless for removing it? And they are stupid/clueless because they didn't talked about XB1 TV functionality on their E3 conference (just like last year E3 which wasn't considered as backtracking)? While all of those features are baked in XB1 hardware/software and they released many updates to make them more streamlined than before and still spending a large amount of money on their original programming?

They said several times that Kinect is an important part of the XB1 and they have no plan to unboxing Kinect at the time. But now they are selling XB1 without Kinect. So what? You think Kinect features are gone? Or they won't support XB1 Kinect in future? Actually one of your reasons to by XB1 is Kinect (according to your post), so it would be meaningless for you to buy a XB1 if you think they killed Kinect months ago.

Their main/real 180 was removing DRM and I can say that they were clueless about internet/retailer reactions but they saw the results and react properly. Also they said they are working to bring back it's main features (like family sharing) which shouldn't be simple without using DRM like policies, maybe they can find another method in future but it won't be simple.

The real problem (as indicated by others here) is that Microsoft would have done all this crap if they had been able to. It was only when they found out, high up in the ivory tower they have lived in, that they were so wrong it hurt sales, then they changed around and started to make sense.

I won't call it crap. It's not a white vs black situation.

And as i said before, there is no way i would have supported a product that was designed to take away the basic principle of me owning my own purchased physical goods. And how the hell Microsoft could have thought that one would fly is beyond me.

XB1 wasn't designed to take your ownership on your physical games, the main goal of DRM was to merge physical/digital license and give more control to developers/publishers instead of retailers. Of course, customers would have face some restriction on physical disks (selling, renting, loaning were possible with publishers permission with or without fees) compared to last gen policies but in other hand they had good plans for digital buyers.

So the XBOX One is surrounded by negativity thanks to Microsoft themselves, why should gamers think they are suddenly on their side? Microsoft will need to do something extraordinarly if they want to turn the tides. Just look at the Sony and the PS3, it took them years and many small steps to get around the incredible bad launch and Sony arrogance. I would say it took them the PS4 to change things.

In my opinion the overall negativity around XB1 (and in your thoughts) is overstated. It seems to me that if they make some changes to XB1 3 years later, some sites will call it 180 and look at it as a bad thing. Negativity around Sony was ended in 2008, they had some problems after 2008 but no one was acting like today (as I remember). Microsoft was much more faster with their decision making and implementing those decisions, so I expected to see a much less negativity around XB1, but instead the internet reactions seems to be much more tougher than 8 years ago.
 
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Yet Steam is beloved and has droves of adoring fanboys and almost no detractors...

And physical media is probably eventually on the way out one way or another. It already has been in most media, although games have some areas of unique resistance imo that may allow discs to cling to life longer. Then again, yeah Steam...it's ubiquitous on PC gaming as a proxy for digital only.

We are heading for another drm discussion here :) there must be a thread for that.
 
Yes mosen, I think it's pretty stupid and clueless if you have a spend years developing a console based around a vision and an idea for the future, and within a year almost everything is gone.

I am not calling them stupid because they changed their plans, imho they didn't have any choice.
 
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