I think Scorpio is a halo (no pun intended) product in the same way that the PS4 Pro is and is inherently not going to be positioned to sell to the majority, at least not initially.
Mixed Information on Consoles or How I learned to loathe PR *spin off*
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I think Scorpio is a halo (no pun intended) product in the same way that the PS4 Pro is and is inherently not going to be positioned to sell to the majority, at least not initially.
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So the informed decision argument is nonsense then?
No, I don't think it's nonsense. I just think the lack of definitive price information isn't as big of a deal given that we all can make an educated guess at a price range and people considering buying Scorpio within the expected price range (floor of $399, $499 more likely) probably aren't going to sweat it being one vs. the other. It's only if it ends up outside that range that I see it being an issue.
How is it non sense?
If we were to encode pieces of information to become a value out of 10 and the summation of those values being the total amount you are informed. How is this non sense?
Both more information is better and verified details would be worth even more on that scoreboard.
And like chess, the longer you have time to make a move the likelihood that you'll make a better move. All in all, I'm not understanding this non sense argument. There's been a lot of pivots for sure, mainly being it's been done before, but that doesn't change the math.
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If you believe that the people picking Xbox One, Xbox One S or Scorpio are the minority, then the majority wouldn't need to be making an informed decision because the were never interested in Scorpio in the first place. You could argue they are making an informed decision by disregarding Scorpio but that's not really the case. Like when I was deciding whether to go BMW or Mercedes, I didn't consciously discount a Ferrari; it was never in the frame for an informed decision.
The reason that those people are the minority instead of the majority is *because* of the range of expected prices for Scorpio. If all cars were the same price there probably would have been more cars you would have considered than what you did and some of those you probably left out of consideration you didn't even specifically look up the price of since you had an idea what they would cost.
There are degrees of being informed.
Knowing a new MS console is coming next year, and that it's going to be the fastest thing on the market is more information than we'd have if we didn't know this. Knowing the price would make us even more informed, but even without that knowledge many people will be able to make a "more informed" decision than they otherwise could.
So there is value to customers in this information - something MS are probably banking on. As for price ... well, MS might not exactly know this themselves yet. The value of UHD BR to the product, yields and cost of their likely-pretty-damn-big APU, the willingness of the market to pay in 15 months time, etc, will all be medium term projections at this point. Final pricing may not be known even to MS yet.
Knowing a new MS console is coming next year, and that it's going to be the fastest thing on the market is more information than we'd have if we didn't know this. Knowing the price would make us even more informed, but even without that knowledge many people will be able to make a "more informed" decision than they otherwise could.
So there is value to customers in this information - something MS are probably banking on. As for price ... well, MS might not exactly know this themselves yet. The value of UHD BR to the product, yields and cost of their likely-pretty-damn-big APU, the willingness of the market to pay in 15 months time, etc, will all be medium term projections at this point. Final pricing may not be known even to MS yet.
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Sure, but all cars are not the same price and Scorpio is not going to be sold at the same price of Xbox One S. For many, that's enough to dismiss it. Does it matter how much? Arguably not to dismiss it any more than the cost differential was not an issue for BRiT to know he'd buy it regardless.
I agree. But I also firmly believe that consoles appeal most to those operating on a lower budget where price is important. For four generations the cheapest console has gained the most lead in sales the quickest and early traction seems important to maintain momentum even when the competition adjust strategy. Every $50 you spend more on a console is less to spend on peripherals and games of your choice.
sounds pretty simple, xo slim is for that demographic.
I just don't understand why this is a thing.
example, amd has their roadmap out, no prices, I've not seen one post about it.
I've not seen anyone say "but I can't decide if I should buy a graphics card now, bad bad amd"
yet ms has somehow thrown people because their not willing to talk prices yet.
so since their not willing to talk prices yet, are people saying they shouldn't have said anything?
you would rather not know they plan to release a higher performing console next year if their not willing to put a price on it? In the end that's all it comes down to.
we would all like more information, how much memory, cpu type, hdd size and yes also price.
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I agree it's no major problem, but the thing with GPUs and mobile etc. is they are a known quantity. With consoles, it's never the same pricing concern, as if you're getting close to a new console, it'll be way more expensive than the current consoles consumers are considering, so it'll clearly be priced too high. About the closest we get in the console space are the slim models, and we do have people wondering whether to wait for a slim or not. And then when the slim doesn't happen, they get upset, or when they give in and buy a fatty and then the slim is announced, get upset. Mildly. But it's no biggie. Definitely consumers would be better off to know price but that ain't gonna so happen, so consumers just have to take their chances and either get lucky or not, such is life.
Depends if it works, it's an experiment right now. Mid gen is twice the testing all the time, but less sales dip during transition. As opposed to twice the testing only during the first year or two during transitions (cross gen development) if we assume they stay on x86/amd for a while, and then maximizing the hardware throughout the generation as they become comfortable with it. BC is important from the consumers point of view to jump on new hardware and still play their existing games, but FC is more for devs hoping it will prevent a dip during new hardware launches without the hassle of cross-gen skus. But since it was planned to exploit shorter launch cycles, it's a zero sum!
I have conflicting emotions. Devs want ROI, and patching games costs money for little return even if PS4P is supposed to be extremely easy to patch for. In addition to doubling the R&D budget for console hardware development (consumers pay for it, directly or indirectly), consumers are seeing the fall of long term investment in a console, while the previous gen is holding back a worthwhile step from a new architecture, because of FC requirement.
Not sure where this is going. I hope devs will talk about their feelings about it. Right now we only get empty corporate statements in interviews.
I have conflicting emotions. Devs want ROI, and patching games costs money for little return even if PS4P is supposed to be extremely easy to patch for. In addition to doubling the R&D budget for console hardware development (consumers pay for it, directly or indirectly), consumers are seeing the fall of long term investment in a console, while the previous gen is holding back a worthwhile step from a new architecture, because of FC requirement.
Not sure where this is going. I hope devs will talk about their feelings about it. Right now we only get empty corporate statements in interviews.
My biggest gripe with these mid generation launches is basically double the garbage. At least I hope that won't be the case. Every 3 years upgrading is just a lot of units. And if they consoles are being tossed every generation that's not a long shelf life. These older units are just going to end up in the landfill because their uses grow less and less important with BC available on the newer units.
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The overall units are going to be the same or less because instead of having 6-8 years worth of consoles to pitch at the start of a fully next-gen cycle you only have 3-4 years worth of consoles between upgrades.
True. It could work out to be similar in numbers. But don't we have that issue for
Mobile phones which are on an annual cadence ?
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Phones break and wear out exponentially more than home consoles creating far more waste and rapid upgrades.
Why are Microsoft spokespersons incapable of speaking plain English?? I presume they mean it's original XBox One quality rendering but with higher resolution assets and the, "We pushed it through and made sure the 4K textures were flowing through," doesn't mean anything whatsoever in addition to that.
That's nitpicking. It's a conversation. Are you always perfectly concise when talking to people? Especially when excited about the subject, as Leadbetter has described those he spoke to?
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It's never just "a conversation" when it's spokespersons for a company talking about a new product with representatives of the media who Microsoft paid to be there for the purpose of reporting information to the public.
It's never just "a conversation" when it's spokespersons for a company talking about a new product with representatives of the media who Microsoft paid to be there for the purpose of reporting information to the public.
I think it's unreasonable to expect every sentenced uttered during a verbal interview to be perfectly phrased and free of redundancies and ambiguities.
A PR statement or a prepared video (the "uncompressed pixels" guy is fair game) can be held to a higher standard.
If you want to criticize anyone, criticize Leadbetter for the way he edited the quote.