How to sell next-gen consoles, Marketing, Positioning, and Pricing [2020]

When you are not playing games a lot, of which data suggests is a lot of people, GamePass isn't worth it. This is probably why, at best, only 1 in 5 Xbox owners has a subscription.

It's more complicated imho.

Gamepass was released late this generation which means a lot had already a lot content Gamepass offers, especially some key MS titles. That changes again with new content rolling with XSX. If you have Gamepass you might also change your purchase strategies because waiting for certain play-once titles like Tomb Raider makes far more sense financially.
 
It all depends on what one expected, i think the UE5 demo and some of the hype around forums had some expecting this 'true generational jump'.
In no way was the PS5 presentation doing that true gen jump, the jump in hardware performance just isn't enough for that, tech has slowed down. SSD ofcourse made the biggest leap over HDD in terms of speeds, but it still doesn't enable better rendering performance, and that's what eurogamer, DF etc are saying.

Sony did show more of a leap then MS, that's not the hardwares fault though, MS seems to cater more around cross-gen and 'xbox game platform'. No doubt MS's platforms will get better looking games down the line too.

There was even one game that showed things the competing machine is incapable of doing at the same speed.

Maybe, most likely that's not the case though. But i can agree that MS should have shown something that shows the advantage regarding the SSD, they have talked alot about it, but not shown yet. I'm sure they can do something equally impressive, but they didn't focus on that in their last show.

GT7 (work in progress) already at 4K/60 fps with RT and dynamic TOD and volumetric clouds + a lot more trackside details over GTS, with gameplay showcased, seem not enough for DF i guess.
nor were almost instant worlds switch in ratchet.

Watch their video on the PS5 show.


They note that GT7 isn't a huge leap over GT Sport, and honestly i agree. The only big differences are ray tracing and some of the things you mention, but a true huge leap? It's the same graphics in pure rasterization to me. That's also because GTS already looks so great.

If i remember correctly, DF was impressed by ratchet's presentation, it showcases fast loading not possible on current gen and high fidelity. There's also ray tracing going on.
But faster loading of worlds and subtle ray tracing etc perhaps don't make for a true generational leap like we had in the past. Theres where the problem lies, some were claiming the biggest leap ever thanks to SSD and powerfull CPU's. What we get is the smallest leap ever, atleast so far, on launch. Moore's law had this one.

And again, i do agree that MS seems to not improve at all for their earlier games, Sony atleast tried to (and partially succeeded) in bringing a big leap. You can't do both, MS's strategy is very intresting i think, they have this rolling generation, where everyone can easily join the eco system, without forcing to a new dedicated platform. Games and graphics will most likely improve over time, Infinite could look like a true next gen game in 2 to 3 years down the line, when hardware has moved more and more into the higher end spectrum for both PC and Xbox systems. More of a service then Sony's.
MS has choosen for a dynamic platform, which evolves slowly over time, abit like the PC. This meas that devs are free to do as they want.
Sony is more traditional, the advantage of that is that their studios 'have to' design with only the newest system in mind, delivering that graphical upgrade that pleases people.
They have totally different strategies, which one is best, no idea, i think theres a market for both. PC gaming is still the biggest aside from mobile, and there it's normal with 'rolling generations', where graphics improve slowly over time, instead of everything at once like from PS4 to PS5.

In these times where jumps arent that great anymore, i think it's not such a bad time for MS to take this strategy, see from GT Sport to GT7, or from Spiderman to the gameplay squence of Miles Morales, or from HZD to forbidden west, we didnt get any gameplay there, but even then, the graphics aren't that much of a jump, feels more like a mid gen upgrade imo. And again, that's what EG and DF etc mean.

Some thought star citizen graphics would be baseline..... or even some of the NV/UE demos from the past years. Hell, some said the biggest jump since 2d to 3d ,)
 
I disagree. The PS5 presentation showed multiple games that looked "next gen". It'd be possible to pick out a bunch that most people have forgotten about, that look impossible on current gen without major adjustments.

There was even one game that showed things the competing machine is incapable of doing at the same speed.
The only thing seen till now that is really convincing as next gen is the UE5 demo [emoji41]
 
I wonder how many people think that the trailer for Fable is indicative of what the final game will look like.

Combine the UE5 demo with the most powerful console ever made and get flashes of Cell magic and the power of the cloud...

God I hate CGI trailers.
 
I wonder how many people think that the trailer for Fable is indicative of what the final game will look like.
Surely nobody? I think the trailer was there to emphasise that the Fable III steampunk theme is a thing of the past.
 
Surely nobody? I think the trailer was there to emphasise that the Fable III steampunk theme is a thing of the past.
I certainly hope so.
But given how many times we have seen similar things in the past, I'm not ready to dismiss the idea all together...
And this is not MS specific, Sony is guilty of the same practices as well.
 
It all depends on what one expected, i think the UE5 demo and some of the hype around forums had some expecting this 'true generational jump'.
In no way was the PS5 presentation doing that true gen jump, the jump in hardware performance just isn't enough for that, tech has slowed down. SSD ofcourse made the biggest leap over HDD in terms of speeds, but it still doesn't enable better rendering performance, and that's what eurogamer, DF etc are saying.

Sony did show more of a leap then MS, that's not the hardwares fault though, MS seems to cater more around cross-gen and 'xbox game platform'. No doubt MS's platforms will get better looking games down the line too.



Maybe, most likely that's not the case though. But i can agree that MS should have shown something that shows the advantage regarding the SSD, they have talked alot about it, but not shown yet. I'm sure they can do something equally impressive, but they didn't focus on that in their last show.



Watch their video on the PS5 show.


They note that GT7 isn't a huge leap over GT Sport, and honestly i agree. The only big differences are ray tracing and some of the things you mention, but a true huge leap? It's the same graphics in pure rasterization to me. That's also because GTS already looks so great.

If i remember correctly, DF was impressed by ratchet's presentation, it showcases fast loading not possible on current gen and high fidelity. There's also ray tracing going on.
But faster loading of worlds and subtle ray tracing etc perhaps don't make for a true generational leap like we had in the past. Theres where the problem lies, some were claiming the biggest leap ever thanks to SSD and powerfull CPU's. What we get is the smallest leap ever, atleast so far, on launch. Moore's law had this one.

And again, i do agree that MS seems to not improve at all for their earlier games, Sony atleast tried to (and partially succeeded) in bringing a big leap. You can't do both, MS's strategy is very intresting i think, they have this rolling generation, where everyone can easily join the eco system, without forcing to a new dedicated platform. Games and graphics will most likely improve over time, Infinite could look like a true next gen game in 2 to 3 years down the line, when hardware has moved more and more into the higher end spectrum for both PC and Xbox systems. More of a service then Sony's.
MS has choosen for a dynamic platform, which evolves slowly over time, abit like the PC. This meas that devs are free to do as they want.
Sony is more traditional, the advantage of that is that their studios 'have to' design with only the newest system in mind, delivering that graphical upgrade that pleases people.
They have totally different strategies, which one is best, no idea, i think theres a market for both. PC gaming is still the biggest aside from mobile, and there it's normal with 'rolling generations', where graphics improve slowly over time, instead of everything at once like from PS4 to PS5.

In these times where jumps arent that great anymore, i think it's not such a bad time for MS to take this strategy, see from GT Sport to GT7, or from Spiderman to the gameplay squence of Miles Morales, or from HZD to forbidden west, we didnt get any gameplay there, but even then, the graphics aren't that much of a jump, feels more like a mid gen upgrade imo. And again, that's what EG and DF etc mean.

Some thought star citizen graphics would be baseline..... or even some of the NV/UE demos from the past years. Hell, some said the biggest jump since 2d to 3d ,)

There are several points in your message that appear inaccurate from a numerically objective point of view. It's very difficult to rationalise with someone when they're emotionally invested in a hardware manufacturer.
 
I think Sony have played the marketing game pretty smartly so far. They got exclusivity on the UE5 demo (though MS would have needed to show if off on PC at the time), and made sure to have some games showing off the speed of their SSD and bit of ray tracing. At least some actual hints at next gen output, in actual gameplay.

MS haven't had anything to really show off XSX so far. Probably doesn't help they didn't have a fully functional and performant XSX devkit to actually show XSX things off on.

At this point even a pimped up his-res 60 fps Forza Horizon 4 with ray traced shadows and reflections would have been useful as a taster of what the hardware will be able to do. Even if they had to run it on an RTX PC.
 
MS haven't had anything to really show off XSX so far. Probably doesn't help they didn't have a fully functional and performant XSX devkit to actually show XSX things off on.
I wasn't aware that much of the content in Microsoft's show was actually running on PC. I only discovered this having just watched DF's analysis of Microsoft's console.
 
If we look at the number of views for the reveals and all related videos, so far Sony really is crushing it.

Personally I just don’t understand why MS is doing things the way they are, like going on about having the most powerful hardware for months, then showing off a legacy-ridden Halo, which should be their absolute flagship, a lot of CGI trailers, games running on PC, it just feels very messy considering we’re what, 3-4 months from launch?
 
It all depends on what one expected, i think the UE5 demo and some of the hype around forums had some expecting this 'true generational jump'.
In no way was the PS5 presentation doing that true gen jump, the jump in hardware performance just isn't enough for that, tech has slowed down. SSD ofcourse made the biggest leap over HDD in terms of speeds, but it still doesn't enable better rendering performance, and that's what eurogamer, DF etc are saying.

Sony did show more of a leap then MS, that's not the hardwares fault though, MS seems to cater more around cross-gen and 'xbox game platform'. No doubt MS's platforms will get better looking games down the line too.



Maybe, most likely that's not the case though. But i can agree that MS should have shown something that shows the advantage regarding the SSD, they have talked alot about it, but not shown yet. I'm sure they can do something equally impressive, but they didn't focus on that in their last show.



Watch their video on the PS5 show.


They note that GT7 isn't a huge leap over GT Sport, and honestly i agree. The only big differences are ray tracing and some of the things you mention, but a true huge leap? It's the same graphics in pure rasterization to me. That's also because GTS already looks so great.

If i remember correctly, DF was impressed by ratchet's presentation, it showcases fast loading not possible on current gen and high fidelity. There's also ray tracing going on.
But faster loading of worlds and subtle ray tracing etc perhaps don't make for a true generational leap like we had in the past. Theres where the problem lies, some were claiming the biggest leap ever thanks to SSD and powerfull CPU's. What we get is the smallest leap ever, atleast so far, on launch. Moore's law had this one.

And again, i do agree that MS seems to not improve at all for their earlier games, Sony atleast tried to (and partially succeeded) in bringing a big leap. You can't do both, MS's strategy is very intresting i think, they have this rolling generation, where everyone can easily join the eco system, without forcing to a new dedicated platform. Games and graphics will most likely improve over time, Infinite could look like a true next gen game in 2 to 3 years down the line, when hardware has moved more and more into the higher end spectrum for both PC and Xbox systems. More of a service then Sony's.
MS has choosen for a dynamic platform, which evolves slowly over time, abit like the PC. This meas that devs are free to do as they want.
Sony is more traditional, the advantage of that is that their studios 'have to' design with only the newest system in mind, delivering that graphical upgrade that pleases people.
They have totally different strategies, which one is best, no idea, i think theres a market for both. PC gaming is still the biggest aside from mobile, and there it's normal with 'rolling generations', where graphics improve slowly over time, instead of everything at once like from PS4 to PS5.

In these times where jumps arent that great anymore, i think it's not such a bad time for MS to take this strategy, see from GT Sport to GT7, or from Spiderman to the gameplay squence of Miles Morales, or from HZD to forbidden west, we didnt get any gameplay there, but even then, the graphics aren't that much of a jump, feels more like a mid gen upgrade imo. And again, that's what EG and DF etc mean.

Some thought star citizen graphics would be baseline..... or even some of the NV/UE demos from the past years. Hell, some said the biggest jump since 2d to 3d ,)

For MS, this is simple they are not ready. They begin to buy new studios too late. For Sony they are ready but they didn't show everything they have. They need to show the gameplay. They have no reason to keep things now.

In August Sony have another event. They will show gameplay, for example, if graphics are nearly as good as in Horizon 2 gameplay in the trailer I can guarantee you all people will be impressed. This is not that DF was not impressed, they were not impressed because this is not gameplay...;)

Sony conference was good but not great because of no big sequence of gameplay like in the best Sony or Microsoft E3.

After Horizon 2 will release in 2021, this is the Killzone Shadow Fall of the PS5. Next GG games will be much better. Early gen games don't look as good as the end of gen games.

Cross gen games never made a difference, they are just current-gen game with some better effect like current-gen games with better preset on PC. This is not next-gen games.

EDIT: Keeping in mind GPU architecture efficiency I think this is nearly as good as between PS3 and PS4 gen. Mid gen games are just current-gen games with better resolution. Games are designed around PS4 and XB1.

If we look at the number of views for the reveals and all related videos, so far Sony really is crushing it.

Personally I just don’t understand why MS is doing things the way they are, like going on about having the most powerful hardware for months, then showing off a legacy-ridden Halo, which should be their absolute flagship, a lot of CGI trailers, games running on PC, it just feels very messy considering we’re what, 3-4 months from launch?

There are two reasons for this. First from a business point of view services are above hardware. MS prefer have the bigger ecosystem than lost some Gamepass subscription because some people don't have an Xbox Series X. For being ready Microsoft needed to begin to buy new studios in 2015. They begin too late and they are without answer to Sony games before 2022.

EDIT: First GT sport presentation were bad. If GT7 release in 2021 I am sure the final version will look much better.
 
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Maybe it's not game of chicken. Playing

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is more stylish

I don't understand how either one of the players would not be ready. They must have known years ahead where their respective launch windows are. If this is covid19 playing into timeschedules then I feel bad for the development teams who will be pushed real hard to try to deliver for launch.

Maybe spiderman for launch caught ms by surprise. It's not typical to bring in big guns for launch. Usually the big titles are later in console lifecycle. If sony didn't have spiderman for this fall both consoles would have pretty meh titles to buy for this christmas. Was ratched&clank confirmed for this year or is it 2021? For horizon I'm not holding my breath, maybe they can deliver 2021 or perhaps it will get delayed for spring 2022.

But to me the end result is that sony really managed to create image of strong titles coming soon for ps5. Microsoft didn't quite manage that as most press I see is about how last gen halo looks and I don't see buzz about the other ms titles either. Fable could have been a really big deal but there wasn't enough shown about it to get excited.
 
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Maybe it's not game of chicken. Playing

View attachment 4367

is more stylish

I don't understand how either one of the players would not be ready. They must have known years ahead where their respective launch windows are. If this is covid19 playing into timeschedules then I feel bad for the development teams who will be pushed real hard to try to deliver for launch.

Maybe spiderman for launch caught ms by surprise. It's not typical to bring in big guns for launch. Usually the big titles are later in schedule. If sony didn't have spiderman for this fall both consoles would have pretty meh titles to buy for this christmas.

Sony did not announce any PS4 games with development beginning after 2017. Ghost of Tsushima begins in 2014 and TLOU2 in 2016. R&D for PS5 was one year longer than PS4 and they begin with the SSD from 2015 with patents of the current SSD filed in 2015 and 2016.

Sony did a postmortem of generation and they understood the first part of generation the exclusives games were missing.

https://gamingbolt.com/sonys-andrew...es-are-sparse-says-exclusives-are-hard-to-get
 
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Maybe it's not game of chicken. Playing

View attachment 4367

is more stylish

I don't understand how either one of the players would not be ready. They must have known years ahead where their respective launch windows are. If this is covid19 playing into timeschedules then I feel bad for the development teams who will be pushed real hard to try to deliver for launch.

Maybe spiderman for launch caught ms by surprise. It's not typical to bring in big guns for launch. Usually the big titles are later in console lifecycle. If sony didn't have spiderman for this fall both consoles would have pretty meh titles to buy for this christmas. Was ratched&clank confirmed for this year or is it 2021? For horizon I'm not holding my breath, maybe they can deliver 2021 or perhaps it will get delayed for spring 2022.

But to me the end result is that sony really managed to create image of strong titles coming soon for ps5. Microsoft didn't quite manage that as most press I see is about how last gen halo looks and I don't see buzz about the other titles.

Halo had been in development for 6 years, and some guy had the courage to pop out and fire back at very justified criticism saying that we are in a pandemic and that the game will improve in the next 4 months? Sorry, what have you been doing the last 6 years? How stupid do you think people are?
 
Halo had been in development for 6 years, and some guy had the courage to pop out and fire back at very justified criticism saying that we are in a pandemic and that the game will improve in the next 4 months? Sorry, what have you been doing the last 6 years? How stupid do you think people are?

Jason Schreier said before than Halo Infinite development was troubled and answering someone on twitter he will write an article about it or more probably keep the story for his next book.
 
And this notion that MS no longer wish to compete with Sony is absolute dross.

Possibly. But I think it's worth mentioning that MS is literally on the record stating exactly this.

"When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a tonne of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward,"


BBC Article from February 6, 2020

(Thank you, mod. Hangovers are a b*)
 
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Personally I just don’t understand why MS is doing things the way they are, like going on about having the most powerful hardware for months, then showing off a legacy-ridden Halo, which should be their absolute flagship, a lot of CGI trailers, games running on PC, it just feels very messy considering we’re what, 3-4 months from launch?
If I had to guess, I'd say, that some aspect of the console was finalized very recently, and many devs were not ready to show something.
It kind of explains why we are seeing everything running on PC instead of at least a dev kit...
That is of course speculation on my part, I just can't think of anything else that explains why they have close to nothing to show on next gen.
 
If we look at the number of views for the reveals and all related videos, so far Sony really is crushing it. Personally I just don’t understand why MS is doing things the way they are, like going on about having the most powerful hardware for months, then showing off a legacy-ridden Halo, which should be their absolute flagship, a lot of CGI trailers, games running on PC, it just feels very messy considering we’re what, 3-4 months from launch?

I wonder if the view numbers are the result of Microsoft's own messaging about cross-generation support muting interest from people who want to see new games on the new console hardware. I know consoles are the means to an end, i.e. to play games, but after seven years of games on the same hardware there surely has to be a significant number people who want to see what nextgen games will look like on nextgen hardware.

I think if Microsoft show this, they'll get higher views.
 
I have to say that I'm a little confused about the potential of there being two new boxes being released this year, as they don't really fit with the currently strategy.

I assume crossgenerational games will have to work as follows, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong:

Xbox One S: 1080p resolution, lower settings
Xbox One X: 4k resolution, lower settings
Xbox Series S: 1080/1440p, higher settings
Xbox Series X: 4k resolution, higher settings

When the new Halo arrives for all of these, is it better to get the Xbox One X or the Xbox Series S version? I'm not sure which one is better in this context, or are they broadly similar? One resolution and one higher settings. I guess its down to preference, or maybe the Series S can have resolution over high settings...

Interested to know how others perceive this.
 
Halo had been in development for 6 years, and some guy had the courage to pop out and fire back at very justified criticism saying that we are in a pandemic and that the game will improve in the next 4 months? Sorry, what have you been doing the last 6 years? How stupid do you think people are?
So. With my general understanding.
Studios have several target dates.
One of them is called content lock. This milestone means after this point nothing is added to the game. Nothing is optimized either.
Content lock will happen anywhere between 7-9 months prior to release approximately.
If you are doing an E3 type event where you show a slice of your content, that is usually done 2-3 months before the event. So not necessarily at content lock depending on when you need to show it.
The game demo is not necessarily part of the real game. But usually it is to save effort.
The game is usually completely unoptimized. Optimization, bug fixes, finalization all happen after content lock.

Once finalization is done you are in gold.

So the game demo slice is usually a ton of effort to get it to even a playable state. If you are well into content lock when you need the demo this process is less painful. If you are required to demo before content lock you’re in for a lot of effort. It takes over 1-2 months to ready a demo of this size.

so if you’re 1-2 months happens during COVID and you’re not deep in content lock, the effort is monumental to get it done.

There is a lot of stuff 343i needs to do. Namely 4 platforms, new tools, new engine, development he’ll, COVID, and then make release.

Hope that helps. That’s not an excuse for people looking for more, but it’s just an understanding that Halo was not the only game that failed. I know another title that after making the demo (1-2) effort to be shown, was canned. And CGI was sent in replacement. Then still have to make content lock by end of month. And the optimization for release in 2021.

if you’re wondering why so little may be shown, it’s quite simply, they are too far from goal. And they would rather just let you know it’s coming than invest the effort to create a vertical slice during COVID
 
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