Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

Targeting another platform is never free, unless you consider QA costs negligible, which if I've been reading the stories on "The Trenches" correctly, may actually be the case.
 
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it, publishers don't want the role of king maker. It actually hurts them in the long run if one platform significantly outperforms another. I expect most third party exclusivity to be timed at best.
 
Its still early, we are just emerging from holiday silly season, and people are I think being way premature with predictions of utter doom.

Price I agree is a factor. But that's really more important for the marathon than the out of the gates sprint we are in.

Keep in mind, ps4 and xb1 are for practical purposes and as far as the average consumer is concerned equal in terms of power and graphics. All multiplat games will look nearly identical on both, close enough to be a nonfactor for the public, and exclusives will look great for both.

So at the same price, the choice would be ps4 or ~ps4 + kinect. With essentially parity in graphics, kinect can be a nice tiebreaker instead of the burden some see it as at the higher price.

Keys for MS are working on shrinks etc to help quickly reach price parity with ps4 and maintain that for the life of the console (keeping kinect); and also focusing on games. Games games games (and I think games and apps that make kinect indispensable for a lot of people).
 
With all the noise from investors and others about ditching the Xbox business to focus on core services, I think a billion dollar write off would be the death knell. It's not just the competition, and consumer choice they are fighting this time.

Was the huge loss on the xbox 360 ever confirmed.. I still find it hard to believe they lost money on this generation..
 
Its still early, we are just emerging from holiday silly season, and people are I think being way premature with predictions of utter doom.

Price I agree is a factor. But that's really more important for the marathon than the out of the gates sprint we are in.

Keep in mind, ps4 and xb1 are for practical purposes and as far as the average consumer is concerned equal in terms of power and graphics. All multiplat games will look nearly identical on both, close enough to be a nonfactor for the public, and exclusives will look great for both.

So at the same price, the choice would be ps4 or ~ps4 + kinect. With essentially parity in graphics, kinect can be a nice tiebreaker instead of the burden some see it as at the higher price.

Keys for MS are working on shrinks etc to help quickly reach price parity with ps4 and maintain that for the life of the console (keeping kinect); and also focusing on games. Games games games (and I think games and apps that make kinect indispensable for a lot of people).

You do realize this works both ways right? Kinect VR is equal to what PS4 is able to deliver with the mic or camera. We have very basic camera controls available on both platforms and not much which the consumer recognize as only possible with Kinect. In fact if rumors are true Titanfall won't be using Kinect which IMO is very puzzling. I do agree its early days wrt sales though and I also think it would be a mistake to release a XB1 without Kinect but I'm wondering outloud if much of the Kinect integration we will see in the short run from third parties will be matched by PS4 plus the camera.
 
I think MS is banking on Kinect being desired and the onus is on them to make good use of the technology. If they can't they'll be forced to abandon it or eat the cost.

Ultimately Live subs are where the real money is.
 
Kinect is also an established brand name by now. I'm surprised from time to time to see what kind of people are familiar with it and using it (mostly based on anecdotal stuff like Facebook).

So it's reasonable to think that a lot of people will actually be drawn to the Kinect 2 when they eventually upgrade. It's not necessarily the burden that some people seem to be thinking.
 
Indeed... sorry.



I wasn't aware of any reliable data on that though...

There isn't, just "insider" claims and anecdotal observations such as extrapolating unofficial numbers of people who play BF4 to the entire market.
 
That makes it even less serious... I wouldn't try to draw any conclusions before at least a complete year, but basing it on practically no data at all... people must be really bored.
 
You do realize this works both ways right? Kinect VR is equal to what PS4 is able to deliver with the mic or camera.

Sure. Of course the capabilities aren't nearly equivalent, but it is entirely on MS shoulders at this point to show clearly that the actual use abilities are not the same. Right now MS leads in actual use and integration, but are in danger of Sony closing this gap if kinect doesn't significantly advance in the future. MS needs killer games and apps that make it painful for gamers and other consumers not to have kinect.

And price needs to reach parity around middle of next year. I know that's early for a price drop, but kinect is a good tiebreaker... MS has yet to show it as a $100 value. If killer apps arrive in the first half of the year, perhaps MS can ride out the price differential, but I don't see that happening.
 
kinect (and associated OS) is easily worth $100 imo.

id gladly pay it again tomorrow after using it, if given the choice to do over with a kinectless sku.

plenty of people, feel the same way. so reports of its death or albatross status are premature drivel.
 
Honest question....how do people determine that and/or come to that conclusion?

Valid point. I guess I should have worded more clearly, as what I was thinking typing that post was MS hasn't proven to everyone that it is a $100 value. Obviously as we've seen here on B3D there will always be some who think the console is too expensive if it has kinect, even if priced the same as ps4, probably even if it were less and MS was eating all the losses, but I think you can see what I mean. Of course plenty of people now feel it is worth the price. I don't disagree. What MS would need is either the software or advertising (or both) to convince the rest that it is worth the price. I just don't see that happening soon enough even though I think there is huge potential in kinect and that the technology will eventually be a game changer. Thus, the easiest route to change that value equation is to reach price parity as soon as possible.
 
kinect (and associated OS) is easily worth $100 imo.

id gladly pay it again tomorrow after using it, if given the choice to do over with a kinectless sku.

But you are not the problem for Microsoft, the problem are those that first of all can't even use the Kinect and the Microsoft vision to it's full extent. If you haven't anything in the HDMI IN then you have a voice and gesture controlled Console, which is nice. But i think it's fair to debate if the extra price is worth it for those people that just buys the console and doesn't have anything to offer the HDMI IN.

With the PS4 you get voice control with the basic package, it's limited right now but it's there with the headset, if you want kinect features you buy the Playstation Camera, still limited but the basics are there.

And the Playstation camera is aparently hot, it's sold out on amazon.com and co.uk
 
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