1 Million Xbox 360s to be Banned
- Thread starter Acert93
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
They need them as much as they need other retailers, possibly slightly more as it's purely game centric (as opposed to like say Walmart or Target).
Either way it's another free advertising front for a console. Any console maker that would ignore them would be giving an advantage to their competition.
Regards,
SB
Goes both ways. If the Xbox 720 is a big release item come 2013 I wouldn't expect GameStop to not carry it and to allow other outlets to effectively move in on that market.
Further, a company (be it Sony or MS or Nintendo) who gets publishers on board to cut out the GameStop antics may see some favortism from pubs (e.g. exclusive DLC content, maybe even "free" launch content--due to better margins for pubs AND "we had an extra month due to no physical media product").
Further, a company (be it Sony or MS or Nintendo) who gets publishers on board to cut out the GameStop antics may see some favortism from pubs (e.g. exclusive DLC content, maybe even "free" launch content--due to better margins for pubs AND "we had an extra month due to no physical media product").
What they do to the consoles I think is only to increase new console sales for the holidays. Features removed go a little beyond just stopping the console connecting to live, they make it so a person would lean towards a new console. Obviously when we buy these consoles we are just renting them. Either the built in selfdestruct kicks in and the console RRODs cause you to renew the rental through "warranty" or they ban you for whatever they dont like you doing with it.
Also if someone adds a new HDD thats not MS certified to their console microsoft has absolutely no right (sensible right) to ban them. MS is just jockeying for lawsuit after lawsuit. Guess they will when it all ends in profit.
EULA/TOS pertaining to hardware seems stupid to me. The same could be done for cars, washing machines, lawnmowers etc then.
Last edited by a moderator:
Silent_Buddha
Legend
They are far less interested in increasing console sales in such a way, as it doesn't impact the installed base of machines. And considering that there isn't much (if any profit) for most consoles.
What's far more vital for them, especially with the holiday season coming up is to encourage people to buy a game rather than pirate it. If you can convince former piraters that they risk having future X360's banned from live, they may be less inclined to hack a new X360 and more inclined to just say it's cheaper to buy the games I REALLY want to play a lot, than to buy a new console every year.
Software sales are where the meat and potatoes is at. Consoles are just a way to get there.
Regards,
SB
specwarGP2
Regular
That's a chicken vs egg argument. How can 720 be a big release item if gamestop doesn't carry it? Let's be real here. Gamestop operates more stores than Walmart, best buy and target combined. No one wants to do business with them but their market penetration is so deep that it would basically be suicide if your product is not in gamestop and your competitor's is.
Last edited by a moderator:
Billy Idol
Legend
I am really not surprised that so many people get banned. I mean, I really have the impression following my own friend's list and people I know that every second Xbox 360 is modded (at least in our region 
)
And of course, these people don't care if the get banned or not...buying a 180 Euro Xbox 360 to carry on, is not so sinister as it sounds.
And of course those people would never buy a PS3 (until it gets modded)! A lot of my friends argue that they buy
The thing what really astounds me is that despite the Xbox360 piracy problem, a whole lot more games are sold compared to PS3! This doesn't really compute for me...
)And of course, these people don't care if the get banned or not...buying a 180 Euro Xbox 360 to carry on, is not so sinister as it sounds.
And of course those people would never buy a PS3 (until it gets modded)! A lot of my friends argue that they buy
The thing what really astounds me is that despite the Xbox360 piracy problem, a whole lot more games are sold compared to PS3! This doesn't really compute for me...
Even the ps3 at $500-$600 bucks sold a few million .
The next xbox will sell its first few million to all the fans who waited months on lists to get the launch xbox 360s.
I don't think thats the problem and if MS is first out of the gate again they can have a year or so before anyone else comes out with a dx 11/12 level console.
Just putting 4 gigs of ram in the console would graphicly blow away anything the ps3 or xbox 360 could do let alone factoring in games designed for next gen cpus and gpus.
Gamers would line up to get it and Gamestop wouldn't want to not sell them because they could still make money off the system , acessorys and the game cards along with live points and live subs .
I doubt gamestop ever wants to tell a consumer oh we aren't stocking that system. That will just drive those customers to another retailer.
I don't see the psp go banned from gamestop. They are happy about the game cards they have a new kiosk with game cards displayed for it and other things now and they make a good profit and have a much smaller foot print for psp games now and moving foward.
specwarGP2
Regular
That's because PSP go has a big margin built in for retailers to make up for revenue loss due to games no longer being sold in store.
Why would gamestop sell and promote a DD only console when they can't make any money from used games and the hardware historically makes little to no profit? Gamestop's interests would be better served by using it's influence to make sure PS4 is the dominant console since it will still use physical media for games.
Well lets look at your arguement.
1) Hardware they can't make any money from.
Answer ? MS builds in a retailer margin. There is already one built in but ms can expand it. You gave an example of a system already doing this, also its much easier to do it on a brand new product than increasing the price on a new revision of an older one.
2) Lack of Used games.
Answer ? There is no way around this for them right now. Its the same with DLC. You can bet they aren't happy that cod mw 2 will have at least 4 map packs only avalible on xbox live and psn. You would bet they'd rather it come out on a disc people had to buy. But there is nothing they can do. Gamestop would rather make a smaller profit on game cards like GTA 4 DLC than to be cut out completely.
3) Bet on the PS4
Thats all well adn good but A) Sony already has a DD only platform. B)Sony is reselling PS1 games through DD only right now thus negating a used revenue stream. Whats to stop them from selling ps2 and ps3 DD on the ps4. Some PS3 games already have DD verisons like warhawk . C) Why would they give up the xbox money ?
Look at it this way. MS can build in a $50 or so mark up for retailers to make money. They aren't going to give up that money. Thats $10 games they'd have to sell. Then they don't want to give up on the xbox live cards and game cards. They can still make a profit , perhaps $5 or so and while its not as much as used games the risks are much lower. Now they have a card in which they can fit 10-30 of them in the space of one retail xbox or playstation in. Not only that but the cards are dirt cheap and like most products has to be scanned through the system to make them active thus cutting down theft and even if they are stolen the costs are no where near what a pressed disc is .
While I see that gamestop wont be to happy it doesn't really matter in the end. Sony bought up a ton of space in the gamestops when hte ps3 launched. They wanted it to have the best store space adn the best display in the store. In the end the 360 still sold better and is still selling better (the ps3 slim is selling better but I think you get the point) even while it was put in the back of the stores .
Developers will be happy as piracy is reduced even further. Now gamers have to connect to the web to get their games and each time they do ms can check to see if anything was hacked. Also ala steam developers can run weekend sales or before COD 18 launches they can offer the last cod at a reduced cost. Or packages of old games. Want Fable 4 on the xbox next ? Well right now we have this great package deal for parts 1,2 and 3 for $30 bucks , play them all before the release !
The benfits are there for the platform holder and the developer.
Ms can also make more money back by selling hardrives. just like this gen. Make the built in hardrive standard and unmoddable. But then add booster hardrives like I said before. Lets say the system comes with a 1TB hardrive. Figuring each game increases to single layer bluray size you can fit 40 games on the original hardrive. But hey here is a 500 gig drive for $100 bucks and you can fit 20 games on it. Oh need more here is a 1TB drive for $200 .
i can see ms taking this route if they feel the negatives (unhappy gamestop and not everyone having decent internet speeds) are not as difficult to overcome.
Build wireless into the console and your set. Most cable , fiber and dsl connections are now coming with wifi modems so that shouldn't be a big problem either and of course this is the end of 2009 a 2011 or 12 launch would give them another year or two of market growth for broad band and speed growth along with hardrive size / cost to increase / decrease.
EDIT
also lets not forget about the advantage hardrives have over bluray. Faster transfer speeds and lower seek times. MS can put a 7200rpm drive with 16megs of cache. on a drive like that you should get upwards of 300MB/s peak transfer
Last edited by a moderator:
ShadowRunner
Veteran
What is the advantage of going DD only? Surely it is better to have both? Any additional cost of a drive is likely offset by the need for a much larger HDD and larger margins for retailers. It will also reduce thier potential customer base. So what are the benefits?
If they want to reduce piracy why not just use similar protection to PS3, its proven pretty robust. If 360 had encrypted firmware on its DVD drive like the PS3 it wouldnt be in the position it is now. In fact the only form of piracy on the PS3 so far has come from DD games. Steam games are also pirated, DD does not mean no piracy in fact it has the potential to make it worse.
If they want to reduce piracy why not just use similar protection to PS3, its proven pretty robust. If 360 had encrypted firmware on its DVD drive like the PS3 it wouldnt be in the position it is now. In fact the only form of piracy on the PS3 so far has come from DD games. Steam games are also pirated, DD does not mean no piracy in fact it has the potential to make it worse.
Last edited by a moderator:
specwarGP2
Regular
The additional margin will have to be at least $50, which is supposedly what PSP go's built in margin is. Now MS could handle this margin in 2 ways: 1) raise MSRP (like PSP go) or 2) absorb the margin as an additional loss. There's no way MS will give PS4 any pricing advantage so therefore it will absorb the retailer margins. In that case, it's cheaper to just have an optical drive built into the console.
What do you mean there is no way around this for right now? Last time I checked all large scale games today ship on an optical disk. People still need the optical disk to get the DLC, so gamestop isnt' cut out. Oh and at some point those maps will be on a disk - MW2 GOTY edition, you can count on it.
A) What does PSP go have to do with anything about PS4?
B) So what if Sony decides to sell PS1 & PS2 games on PSN? There are still tons of PS2 and PS3 games in circulation and more importantly PS4 games will still be on BD.
C) Because gamestop can make more money selling used PS4 games and accessories than only accessories from a DD only console. It's in gamestop's best interests in the long run to ensure its customers buy PS4 instead of a DD only console.
Last edited by a moderator:
specwarGP2
Regular
From gamestop's corporate page:
GameStop has 6,333 stores in operation, of which 4377 are located in the United States, 339 in Canada, 370 in Australia/New Zealand and 1247 are in Europe.
Get that damn thing on Live and start playing with us!
Walmart alone has over 8,000 retail outlets.
Best Buy weighs in at 1,045 outlets and 1,743 for Target outlets.
Much like your BluRay pricing arguement above I think a lot of your points are being founded in numbers that don't quite align with reality.
I agree that GS is big. No doubt. I also agree that GS is visible due to it being gaming centric. I also don't know the aggregate sales of the various outlets.(As an aside I think Best Buy has a much bigger gaming electronics section with more variety; I find GS stores are flooded with used games plastered on the wall at steep prices and a lot of used, repackaged peripherals).
But GS is also the one Publishers are quite mad at--they do, afterall, cut directly into Publisher Profits with their resale antics (that haven't always been on the up-and-up).
Whatever console launches first there is a good deal of evidence that first holiday they will be supply constrained. If GS is cut out it won't hurt sales initially. And GS would NOT be happy to have a major platform release totally SKIP their store--thing of all the lost peripheral sales, point cards, potential console markup, etc. Essentially conceeding marketshare to The Walmarts of the world.
Sure, alienating a huge retail outlet is a risky move. And going DD will limit some potential sales.
But the cost of the platform hardware, technological advantages, weeding out resale AND used sales, removing packaging/distribution costs, etc all need to be considered as well.
A console with a 500GB or 1TB harddrive and no optical drive can be smaller, quieter, and more reliable than one with an optical drive. It can mean increased transfer rates and more DLC sales, advertising, etc.
I still have lots of single player catching up to do
That can wait! Get. In. The. Game!
Wikipedia has numbers for just the US, as opposed to worldwide.
It apparently uses http://walmartstores.com/download/3661.pdf as a source, but I haven't been able to read it to double-check because work is particularly crazy.
It apparently uses http://walmartstores.com/download/3661.pdf as a source, but I haven't been able to read it to double-check because work is particularly crazy.
specwarGP2
Regular
The fact that publishers continue to deal with gamestop despite all the bitching and complaining about used game sales says a lot about how much power gamestop has over them. They could just not sell games to gamestop anymore.... but of course that's not going to happen.
Oh and I guess I was mistaken about total stores that walmart operates. I was just going by NA numbers, and although the totals are close, collectively walmart best buy and target do operate more stores than gamestop.
