Famitsu on next gen survey

[London Geezer]

Did you just told me to grow up and go to igloo in one post

Why is it just excuse? many businesses start by building foundations for future and profit comes later, this is exactly what MS has done. I don't know what future holds for them, but it's too early to say that they have failed. That CameCube thing was a typo.

Is it safe to say that on its own, Xbox is a commercial failure, after the immense losses MS endured, after the embarrassing sales? Yes.
The future is the future. As it stands now, the Xbox is a commercial failure, whatever way you look at it.
If you do not consider the Xbox a commercial failure, that's fine, but then don't come round saying the GC is a failure, cause they have sold the same amount of units more or less, and finding excuses over the "Future Vision(TM)" of Microsoft won't cut it. They both did embarrassingly bad, much worse than people expected prior to launch. But then again, no one was expecting Sony to do as well as they did.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Is it safe to say that on its own, Xbox is a commercial failure, after the immense losses MS endured, after the embarrassing sales? Yes.
The future is the future. As it stands now, the Xbox is a commercial failure, whatever way you look at it.
If you do not consider the Xbox a commercial failure, that's fine, but then don't come round saying the GC is a failure, cause they have sold the same amount of units more or less, and finding excuses over the "Future Vision(TM)" of Microsoft won't cut it. They both did embarrassingly bad, much worse than people expected prior to launch. But then again, no one was expecting Sony to do as well as they did.

My understanding is that Xbox sales are pretty much what MS expected. I didn't say GC is a failure, but rather that they should have done better considering that they are veterans on the market.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Xbox is around 18 million now, with Cube at around 17 million. MS wanted 30+ million Xbox units by the end of the lifecycle. Nintendo wanted 60 million Cubes by March 2005. Which do you think is the greater failure?

Also, Xbox was only a failure in two territories, whereas Cube was a failure in all three. Xbox has gained a lot of mindshare in the US market and MS has also successfully launced a subscription service with more than one million Live gamers.

All of this is irrelevant though. The real question is: Which company learned from their mistakes?

Will Xbox 2 have a more appealing design (smaller etc...), have a more diverse software offering, and be cheaper to produce? Almost certainly.

Will Revolution have greater third party support, a less kiddy image, and a more diverse sofware offering? There's no reason to suggest it will. All the talk from Nintendo is about "being different" next time, which to me suggests a further retreat into their niche.

 

[Tuttle]

My understanding is that Xbox sales are pretty much what MS expected.

We'll I guess it sounds better than coming right out and admitting you've had the greatest console market failure in history...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

We'll I guess it sounds better than coming right out and admitting you've had the greatest console market failure in history...

If you are talking about Japan you are correct, otherwise that is garbage.

 

[wazoo]

If you wanted to point out irrealistic projections of the past, it was more like

100M xbox from Jay Allard mouth

50M (by march 2005) from Iwata mouth

That is all I read.

 

[Tuttle]

We'll I guess it sounds better than coming right out and admitting you've had the greatest console market failure in history...

If you are talking about Japan you are correct, otherwise that is garbage.

Sorry, the Xbox is the Mother of All Marketplace Failures in the console world.

 

[Qroach]

Hardly. Xbox certianly wasn't a success, but it wasn't a total failure. I have a bit of trouble agreeing with your opinion Tuttle, considering how much you hate MS & Xbox. Xbox isn't more of a failure than the 3DO, Atari jaguar, Sega saturn, Dreamcast, or a number of other defunct consoles. You don't need to like xbox or MS to realize the obvious.

MS had a plan from the start that they wanted to get thier foot in the door with the first xbox and make a better run with xbox 2.

 

[Readykilowatt]

<snip>

MS wanted 30+ million Xbox units by the end of the lifecycle.

<snip>

To be more precise, it was 100 million.

MS had a plan from the start that they wanted to get thier foot in the door with the first xbox and make a better run with xbox 2.

Based upon their initial expectations, they wanted a very big foot in the door.

 

[Qroach]

Read that article again. J allard doesn't say they have a target of 100 million. He just says the first 3 million are easy, but the next 100 million are tough. How that looks like he's saying MS has a "target" of 100 million is beyond me. He could have said next billion, but that wouldn't have meant they have a target of a billion.

 

[one]

Xbox isn't more of a failure than the 3DO, Atari jaguar, Sega saturn, Dreamcast, or a number of other defunct consoles. You don't need to like xbox or MS to realize the obvious.

What's your difinition of 'failure'? I bet the financial loss incurred by the Xbox is much bigger than all losers you listed.

 

[Qroach]

What's your difinition of 'failure'?

From the standpoint of a consumer, the Xbox hasn't been a failure. Really, who gives a $hit that MS is loosing money when they "fully" expect to? All I care about, and so do actual gamers, is if the console is affordable and has support, and decent game titles. Those are the things that runs through my head when I plunk down my hard earned money. I don't sit there thinking, "are they making money on this"? Anything beyond that shouldn't be a concern.

Now developers on the other hand have a legitimate concern over MS losing money, however we all know they aren't dropping out of this anytime soon, and plan to be more financially stable with the next version of the console.

So who should be caring about this? The MS investors? Are you one? If I had MS stock I wouldn't worry about this as they have done things like this before, and ended up learning from thier mistakes.

I bet the financial loss incurred by the Xbox is much bigger than all losers you listed.

...and the barrier to entry is also much BIGGER. Once again I ask "so what"?

 

[see colon]

as much as xbox was comercialy a failure, it did capture a mindset from the gaming public.

i see people every day i'm at ElBo or GStop trading in cubes. i've actualy glanced in the back room of my local ElBo while an employee was heading back there and literaly saw a wall of used gamecubes. something sales number's don't show are used sales and trades. how many gamecubes are still being played? how many xbox's? nintendo might be keeping pace with microsoft with hardware units sold, but i think they are beating them in hardware units traded back in.

i love my gamecube. out of all of the home consoles this generation it's the one that impresses me the most often. but the hard fact is that it wasn't successful, it got beat by the xbox and it wasn't successful. sony was the only real winner this round, and it annoys me to no end that they knew it in 2002, and let everyone know it.

 

[Qroach]

I gotta ask, would the people that say xbox was a total failure, say the SAME thing even if MS was able to make money on it, and sold the same amount of units? I'd be willing to bet, yes they would say the same thing, because no matter what, Sony sold more units an that's the only bar they are judging this on.

 

[Ty]

This argument is ALWAYS dreged up and we still haven't even successfully defined what "success" is.

Is is absolute unit sales compared to the previous generation?
GCN failure
XBox and PS2 success

Is it absolute unit sales compared to what the company itself was predicting?
XBox and GCN failure

Is it profit?
GCN success (or at least Nintendo success)
PS2 and Xbox failure

Is it consumer mindshare? Developer mindshare? Laying the foundation for the future? Total # of games? In other words, shouldn't we at least nail down the definition of what "success" is before we argue so-and-so is a success or a failure?

 

[Inane_Dork]

Sorry, the Xbox is the Mother of All Marketplace Failures in the console world.

 

[Acert93]

This argument is ALWAYS dreged up and we still haven't even successfully defined what "success" is.

Is is absolute unit sales compared to the previous generation?
GCN failure
XBox and PS2 success

Is it absolute unit sales compared to what the company itself was predicting?
XBox and GCN failure

Is it profit?
GCN success (or at least Nintendo success)
PS2 and Xbox failure

Is it consumer mindshare? Developer mindshare? Laying the foundation for the future? Total # of games? In other words, shouldn't we at least nail down the definition of what "success" is before we argue so-and-so is a success or a failure?

Quoted for emphasis. Nice post Ty.

 

[Qroach]

Excellent post ty.

 

[Readykilowatt]

Read that article again. J allard doesn't say they have a target of 100 million. He just says the first 3 million are easy, but the next 100 million are tough. How that looks like he's saying MS has a "target" of 100 million is beyond me. He could have said next billion, but that wouldn't have meant they have a target of a billion.

My interpretation of J. Allard's comments are different from yours. Let's leave it at that.

This argument is ALWAYS dreged up and we still haven't even successfully defined what "success" is.

Is it profit?

That is what it all boils down to. It is common knowledge that all companies exist for the same purpose, to return an increasing profit to their owners, shareholders and/or investors. It is true that a business must focus on its customers, but only within the limits of its obligations to provide security and profit to its shareholders.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Profit goals can also be longer sighted goals that are not necessaily attributed to a single product, which it self can just be a step towards the ultimate goal - in this case its one part of the movement to ensure MS products get into the living room.

For sure, though, there appears to have been some nievity on the hardware contracts on the initial version.