Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[BRiT]

This is the thread for the comparison of the business approaches taken by Sony and Microsoft for their next-gen consoles.

This is NOT for technical comparisons, nor is it for what you would have preferred. Blind fanboy postings will not be tolerated.

Technical Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox is here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=63566

 

[Grall]

I think it boils down to XBO hardware being less than PS4 because a lot of the budget was blown on Kinect and the amazing TOF camera.

Yeah, MS is sacrificing part of their "core gaming" max performance to bring in the new kinect, and they're making a major reach for becoming the defacto living room central unit with HDMI in/TV integration. If you had watched the presentation, you would have noticed that a huge percentage (40, 50%) of the time was devoted to non-gaming, and/or TV discussion, and using voice and motions to control your TV watching, apps, switching between apps and games and TV channels and so on. This is a big reason they're calling it "xbox one" methinks; they want to project the impression their gadget is the only one you'll need.

Unfortunately for MS, much of this non-gaming functionality is unlikely to be available for very many countries outside the US for a year, or more likely, several years, which risks making the XB1 (I don't feel comfortable calling it "xbone" ) look less attractive compared to PS4. Success of their new strategy also hinges on regular people actually going for their motion-voice-enabled XB1 vision. To me, MS feels a little like Aperture Science, with their defrosting unit that is also a fully-featured disk operating system.

Who asked for a gadget like this? Well, nobody actually. Will people see it as a work of genius which is seamlessly integrated into their lives like smart phones/tablets, kind of like, "why didn't someone think of this before now?! *smacks side of head*", or will it just be a curiosity that attracts the more geekish of people but is not understood by the large majority? *shrug* I've no idea.

It's a huge gamble they're making, literally, making a power-grab for the living room like this, whereas Sony is just focused on gaming, albeit trying for the gaming-married-to-social-media gambit that they presented in their demonstration, which is inherently much less risky.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So, who's going to win?

We haven't seen anything on Ps4's services and end user experience which is what MS was all about. I see a clear distinction between target markets. I expect Sony to win a lot of core gamer interest, but will Ms end up with more sales/revenues/profits in the long run?

 

[Daozang]

So, who's going to win?

We haven't seen anything on Ps4's services and end user experience which is what MS was all about. I see a clear distinction between target markets. I expect Sony to win a lot of core gamer interest, but will Ms end up with more sales/revenues/profits in the long run?

Perhaps in North America.
But I think that they started on the wrong foot when it comes to Europe...
Especially when most of what they had, have to do with services that won't be available for at least a year.
Time will tell.

Up to this point, the Sony platform seems to be more game friendly.
That can change come E3.

 

[HollovVpo1nt]

Microsofts TV focus does nothing for me (EU). However I went to work out after the reveal and on a lot of readio stations I heard people beeing excited for the XOne, mainly due to exclusive FIFA and COD content. Especially exclusive FIFA content, because FIFA is pretty damn huge here.

 

[NathansFortune]

Microsofts TV focus does nothing for me (EU). However I went to work out after the reveal and on a lot of readio stations I heard people beeing excited for the XOne, mainly due to exclusive FIFA and COD content. Especially exclusive FIFA content, because FIFA is pretty damn huge here.

The exclusive FIFA content is very limited. On stage it seemed like Ultimate Team would be exclusive to Xbone but it is actually just a bit of exclusive content for Ultimate Team, UT will still be on PS4 FIFA.

 

[Phil]

Not sure if this post is early, but the way I see it, you have the business model of Sony of going with a console in the more traditional sense (adequate performance, services that are an evolution of what is available now) vs Microsoft that is going for a lot PVR stuff and the cloud service.

I just highlighted in the other topic, that I don't think the cloud service will be effectively used to enhance the weaker hardware, but to offer new gameplay possibilities. Offer persistant worlds - worlds that change and stay changed and to offer places on a grand scale where players can interact with each other (or not) in a shared world kind of thingy.

This might not work for every type of game, but if most games would offer such an environment and say Sony couldn't offer something similarly (because they don't have a cloud infrastructure), I could see how Microsoft could offer very attractive gameplay possibilities that is tied into their cloud service. It would make comparing games difficult. Who is to say that the potentially graphically slightly better games (PS4) would be better than the slightly less sophisticated ones on Xbox but with a persistant world you can connect to?

I'm as much awed by great graphics as the next guy on here, but persistant worlds in many games would IMO sound quite exciting.

 

[HollovVpo1nt]

The exclusive FIFA content is very limited. On stage it seemed like Ultimate Team would be exclusive to Xbone but it is actually just a bit of exclusive content for Ultimate Team, UT will still be on PS4 FIFA.

I know UT isn't exclusive to One. But One has exclusive content, regardless of what it is, which makes it the definitive version automatically.

 

[upnorthsox]

Not sure if this post is early, but the way I see it, you have the business model of Sony of going with a console in the more traditional sense (adequate performance, services that are an evolution of what is available now) vs Microsoft that is going for a lot PVR stuff and the cloud service.

I just highlighted in the other topic, that I don't think the cloud service will be effectively used to enhance the weaker hardware, but to offer new gameplay possibilities. Offer persistant worlds - worlds that change and stay changed and to offer places on a grand scale where players can interact with each other (or not) in a shared world kind of thingy.

This might not work for every type of game, but if most games would offer such an environment and say Sony couldn't offer something similarly (because they don't have a cloud infrastructure), I could see how Microsoft could offer very attractive gameplay possibilities that is tied into their cloud service. It would make comparing games difficult. Who is to say that the potentially graphically slightly better games (PS4) would be better than the slightly less sophisticated ones on Xbox but with a persistant world you can connect to?

I'm as much awed by great graphics as the next guy on here, but persistant worlds in many games would IMO sound quite exciting.

So developers will not provide better (or only slightly better) graphics for the sake of parity but will create an entirely unique content structure on one platform just because?

I'm actually quite optimistic of the potential for cloud integration but its biggest asset is that it's not an exclusive feature to one platform.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I know UT isn't exclusive to One. But One has exclusive content, regardless of what it is, which makes it the definitive version automatically.

dunno about that. If it looks better or plays better on one console than the other, even fi the other has a little more content, it won't be the platform of choice for many of the games fans. Depends on the content and the alternative offering.

 

[Bagel seed]

$400m 5 year deal with the NFL

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap10...rike-deal-to-enhance-fans-tv-viewing-of-games

 

[Jubei]

Microsoft is notoriously poor at offering their services outside the USA so i dont expect Xbox One to be any different. If price is similar then Xbox1 will probably edge out PS4 in the US while Sony will edge out elsewhere

 

[Arwin]

Microsoft is notoriously poor at offering their services outside the USA so i dont expect Xbox One to be any different. If price is similar then Xbox1 will probably edge out PS4 in the US while Sony will edge out elsewhere

This is my biggest worry, and what has been making the Live Gold paywall hard to bear over here. As they've already indicated this is basically not changing, I don't know where this will go from here.

 

[NathansFortune]

I know UT isn't exclusive to One. But One has exclusive content, regardless of what it is, which makes it the definitive version automatically.

Not really. Especially since it is quite likely that the content will make its way to PS4 eventually anyway.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering the cost of Kinect and the much larger SOC, is XB1 going to be much more expensive than PS4? Would Sony really want to price themselves much less and risk positioning themselves as the inferior product to those who respect price-tags, plus miss out on profit margins?

Given the core gamer already seems pretty set on buying a PS4 as the better games machine, I'm thinking Sony would be wise to keep the initial price high. As GDDR5 price plummets, they'll make major savings and will have far more flexibility in pricing without risking profitability.

 

[Bagel seed]

There will probably be multiple skus anyways. 399 and 499 are likely targets.

Sony enjoyed on par to more ww sales even at higher average pricing for quite some time. Same or lower pricing may hurt Xbone, like PSone's infamous $299 announcement against the overpriced Saturn.

 

[expletive]

Considering the cost of Kinect and the much larger SOC, is XB1 going to be much more expensive than PS4? Would Sony really want to price themselves much less and risk positioning themselves as the inferior product to those who respect price-tags, plus miss out on profit margins?

Given the core gamer already seems pretty set on buying a PS4 as the better games machine, I'm thinking Sony would be wise to keep the initial price high. As GDDR5 price plummets, they'll make major savings and will have far more flexibility in pricing without risking profitability.

Sounds like you feel that Sony has more pricing flexibility with the PS4 than XB1? How did you derive that?

GIven how the XB1 is being positioned, I cannot see it being priced over $399 as a family living room device. I cant think of any similar device in the past that has sold in any relevant quantities that has sold for over that amount.

 

[wco81]

The TV stuff sounded nice but I don't see running my DVR through it unless it can access all the features of my specific DVR.

Don't know about speaking commands all the time either. I don't use Siri as much as I could. At least Siri has NLP whereas this, they were prepending commands with Xbox.

I think the dealbreaker for me would be paying for the service. I don't like paying for online gaming either but I guess MS noticed a lot of XBL people watching Netflix and thought they could double-down on this.

Plus, the golden fleece of living room convergence. With rumors about Apple doing Siri for TVs or some way to change the interface for controlling TVs, it sounds like they wanted to get the preemtive strike in.

That's all fine but I'm not paying to change channels on my TV. Already pay enough to get the TV channels.

Oh and I'll still use my iPad rather than shrink my video to put in a second screen with data. I'm guessing reading text on a shrunken portion of the screen that you're sitting several feet from is not the optimal way to read.

Certainly bold that they're trying to change the paradigm of how we interact with the big screen. However, maybe if they did this 3-4 years ago, before people had their phones with them all the time (and now, increasingly, tablets), maybe they would have had a shot.

 

[ERP]

I don't think MS had much of a choice at the presentation yesterday, there was little they could have shown on the gaming front outside a few exclusives that wouldn't have been received as me too.
Worse asking for demos 3 weeks before E3, probably wouldn't have gotten the warmest of receptions.
I think had the message been games first and cool user experience second the gaming press would be responding very differently.
Lucky for them they have E3 where they can reassert their commitment to gaming.
It'll be interesting to see what games are shown on what platform.
I wouldn't declare winners yet.
I'm not sold on the slick UI or the interactive TV, and I'm interested to see how often I really want to run two things side by side, with phone/tablet integration it might actually work and be something you use.... or not... I know I like airplay a lot on my apple TV but rarely use it because it involves changing inputs on my TV, so who knows.
Microsoft as always though remains committed to services and infrastructure, which I think in the medium/longterm is a smart play, but I also believe they have to capture the core gamer.

 

[blakjedi]

I am of several minds of the XO or X1 reveal.

1 - I think this was all about Azure and cloud services and the future of MS - not gaming or even entertainment. Getting the X1 to be an adequate set top box even in the united states, is EXTREMELY difficult. If it came with a tuner of some sort and/or cablecard slot I would believe their vision more. I just don't see how that would work without universal HDMI 1.4a and an IR blaster.

2 - The NFL tie up was masterful. Americas biggest sport with the most gamble...er fantasy money being spent is great for MS... but unless that prevent Madden from selling on the PS4.. why bother?

3- Getting back to point one - X1 is essentially a public demo of MS' virtualization and cloud strategy in order to break the back of the expensive hardware development cycle for game consoles. If that gamble pays off by enabling X1 to iterate more often than Sony in the living room and across devices then MS wins.

If MS can create tablets, and update the Windows desktop to run X1 VMs... everyone in the MS ecosystem wins... That said, they should have gone for a more straightforward HW architecture without esram and move engines. A cloud/VM strategy with PS4 architecture would have ended the console game prematurely.

4. Xbox One, in order to fulfill its promise should have had time warner, Comcast, and directv on stage claiming their support for the MS' input-and-overlay model. X1 needed to be both DVR/PVR and tuner in order to be complete. It isn't.