You act as if people dislike MS just because its MS which by itself cant be a reason
Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox
- Thread starter BRiT
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You act as if people dislike MS just because its MS which by itself cant be a reason
There is a certain amount of the population that does excatly that. I have no reason to hate a corporation. There are people who HATE MS. They also complain about things they will never buy from them and/or have never used.
Anyway, Carmack gives very reasoned approaches and analysis about the components of XB1 and they all make sense. In fact they very much parrot what many people on this board have said about Kinect, always-on and the like.
Lets see what the clapback is regarding his statements.
So people pick on MS, well deserved most of the time. Being an apologist is even stranger IMO. Yes, Google forced their unsuccessful seldom used search engine onto phones.. no that was Bing. Google was the defacto standard by then, so anyone using it on a iPhone or anywhere else was by user choice. Unlike say Bing on Verizon Android phones due to MS cash.
Google creates a license free phone OS and gives it away, MS extracts money from handset makers with threats of expensive lawsuits. How noble and creative MS is
If you can't beat them, copy and sue them.
So people pick on MS, well deserved most of the time. Being an apologist is even stranger IMO. Yes, Google forced their unsuccessful seldom used search engine onto phones.. no that was Bing. Google was the defacto standard by then, so anyone using it on a iPhone or anywhere else was by user choice. Unlike say Bing on Verizon Android phones due to MS cash.
Google creates a license free phone OS and gives it away, MS extracts money from handset makers with threats of expensive lawsuits. How noble and creative MS is
If you can't beat them, copy and sue them.
A lot of your statements are suppositions in their entirety. You have zero idea as why Facebook chose Bing over Google to power facebook graph. Apple chose bing because the backend of Bing is powerful and it wasnt google.
Not every one likes or prefers google's services or wants to play in the google world. Or Sony's world. Or Apple's world or MS' world. I cant even begin to address your comment about what MS "deserves"...as if there is such a thing when speaking about corporate products and services.
Google creates a license free phone OS and gives it away, MS extracts money from handset makers with threats of expensive lawsuits. How noble and creative MS is
If you can't beat them, copy and sue them.
Yeah, Google threatened to pull Acer's android license because decision to produce a non compatible android device, compatibility meaning access to Google's store and basically under Google's control.
They even threaten Motorola before they purchased them over Motorola planned use of skyhook's location services for Droid X.
Lets ignore the number of antitrust investigations launched against google's practices over the last 2 years.
MS and Sony are businesses, not charities or gov't agencies mandated to provide consumers with the best products and business practices. They all push the envelope and will run over anybody if it means more money and they can get away with it. Thats why we have gov't agencies to protect us from them.
There are no knights in shining armor.
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I was about to remove the "MS versus the World" discussion there. Let's just drop it at this juncture. Some people dislike some organisations for their own reason, whether justified or not. Unless someone can bring real numbers to the table, the impact of that brand animosity is impossible to factor into the business strategies of MS and Sony so we should just ignore it and consider the factors that the organisations can control to improve there business chances.
Good luck with that
Well....there goes the gov't agency in the shining armor
LOL.
Who's perfect? Are you perfectly willing to live in a world without them?
(People s**t on the police all the time but as soon as the s**& hits the fan who do they call and expect to show up.)
Sony nor MS cares anything about us other than the money in our wallets. Thats reality. And in return I doubt any of us (no matter how fanboyish one appears) would not drop their loyalty in a minute for an obviously better product.
When it comes down to it, we all matter whether its casual, core or hardcore. Hardcore buys chunks of software and casual buys hunks of hardware. Core falls somewhere in between. A dance central controller, FaceStation apps and GreyRay are all there to service someone.
Don't casuals outspend the hardcore now on both hardware and software? Especially hardware side where the hardcore don't really spend much at all compared to casuals who are buying new gadgets all the time, but even software side I'd expect the hardcore gamer to not be the most financially lucrative market anymore. It's anecdotal, but all the ladies I know far outspend any hardcore gamer I know on hardware and services. Does anyone have good data on this? On forums the hardcore are always touted but I don't think they are the top dog anymore.
Thats believable when talking casuals as whole but any individual that outspends a hardcore gamer should be probably consider a hardcore gamer themselves unless they are a collector or have a shopping problem.
Well I guess I mean they are more likely to have the hulu account and Netflix account and the $100/mt cell phone bill, and spend money on casual games and apps, and rent movies, etc all while buying a new phone and tablet every year. So while a hardcore gamer will buy more "hardcore" games than a casual would like the Halo's and COD type games, the casuals, at least the ones that I know, ultimately outspend the hardcore gamers I know on a combination of other types of games, services and hardware. So as pure dollar value they end up being more important than the typical hardcore gamer. That's just my anecdotal evidence though, I'd be curious to see if there was a study to back that up but in my world the casuals I know far outspend the hardcore gamer types.
Since when do hardcore gamers not have Netflix accounts and smartphones?
Since he never said they didn't?
He's saying the casuals spend the same amount of money or more, just on different content. I'm not sure that he's right, but at least argue the point.
My personal feeling is that they sell 70+ million consoles over the course of a generation and the so-called "hardcore" or "core" gamer is actually a pretty small portion of that. They know how much they can get out of that percentage of their customer base and they're trying to pull more out of the "casuals" who maybe buy one or two games a year. The trick is finding the balance where you don't cater to the casuals at the expense of the core.
To be totally honest, I don't think much has been sacrificed to cater to the casuals by either company. With the exception of some RAM, most of what's being offered to casuals is software features that in no way detracts from features for hardcore gamers. Sony was fully prepared to go with 4 GB of RAM to go the gamer route. I think for the most part gamers would have been ok with that. They seemed to be pretty excited about the console before the 8 GB announce. Now they've got a little more for games and a little bit reserved to try to give themselves some room to grow into non-gaming features.
There are so many conflicting demands from the gamer crowd. They want something super powerful, but they also want it to be incredibly affordable (sold at a loss). It's basically bullshit, but that's what they're used to. Some gamers are looking at the specs and saying they're a joke, calling them mid to low-end PCs. You get what you pay for, and if the consoles had cost $600+ people would have said it was unaffordable and walked away. If Sony and Microsoft had both decided to skip the casuals entirely, I'd be willing to bet the consoles would be pretty much exactly the same as they are now, and the same price.
The issue that some have with both platforms are the tradeoffs; primarily memory allocation on PS4 and memory and motion controls with XB1. Personally I believe that much of the capabilities that transcend gaming could be provided without such a large compromise.
For example personally I'd be OK with a few second wait to start an app if it means there is more memory available for the game I'm playing. It's ironic that simple acts like walking into and out of a building/town while gaming could have a longer pause than starting a browser or movie app.
Not to mention that the whole multitasking buzz being thrown around is IMO somewhat overstated. I generally don't watch movies while playing a game. If I was using the browser on XB1/PS4 it might be nice to have Pandora streaming music in the background but how much memory is required to do that? And the reality is that even if XB1/PS4 do launch with capable browsers and apps, I am almost positive I'll prefer accessing the internet/composing email/shopping or whatever on a laptop or tablet. Without a keyboard or touch screen it's just not likely to be very comfortable or efficient. I have zero interest in talking to my TV all day on Saturday to change channels, or waiving my hands to adjust the volume.
Skype will be cool on XB1 over the holidays, but more than likely I'll be using my next console to stream movies, play games and listen to music not much else. My DVR works just fine, my phone makes great calls and lets me read email and I can surf the net/shop on my laptop; what I in the market for is a game console with updated graphics and new compelling game-play to provide entertainment which for me has to do with production values and taking risk moreso than motion controls or quickly flipping from the game to a boss fight....
For example personally I'd be OK with a few second wait to start an app if it means there is more memory available for the game I'm playing. It's ironic that simple acts like walking into and out of a building/town while gaming could have a longer pause than starting a browser or movie app.
Not to mention that the whole multitasking buzz being thrown around is IMO somewhat overstated. I generally don't watch movies while playing a game. If I was using the browser on XB1/PS4 it might be nice to have Pandora streaming music in the background but how much memory is required to do that? And the reality is that even if XB1/PS4 do launch with capable browsers and apps, I am almost positive I'll prefer accessing the internet/composing email/shopping or whatever on a laptop or tablet. Without a keyboard or touch screen it's just not likely to be very comfortable or efficient. I have zero interest in talking to my TV all day on Saturday to change channels, or waiving my hands to adjust the volume.
Skype will be cool on XB1 over the holidays, but more than likely I'll be using my next console to stream movies, play games and listen to music not much else. My DVR works just fine, my phone makes great calls and lets me read email and I can surf the net/shop on my laptop; what I in the market for is a game console with updated graphics and new compelling game-play to provide entertainment which for me has to do with production values and taking risk moreso than motion controls or quickly flipping from the game to a boss fight....
I can't say I see any higher expenditure for non-core-gamers than core gamers. The only logical reasoning behind that would be that the gamers spend more time gaming than doing other things which has much greater value ($50 of game can last 50+ hours, whereas 50 hours of TV shows or DVD film rentals would cost much more, I guess). I don't think behaviours will be any different to explain a difference in media consumption. Quite the contrary, the core-gamer stereotype has them consumers of a lot of media rather than, say, spending big on clothes or golf clubs, which would mean a larger proportion of their disposable income going on content. And I don't mean to say the stereotype is accurate, but even the stereotype favours the gamer spending more, so in a more balanced population, what reason is there to think gamers aren't buying as much stuff as everyone else?
Even if casuals spend more (I dont know about per gamer), it doesn't invalidate core gaming.
Best way I recently heard it is that core gamers appear smaller because the overall number of gamers has greatly increased. That's not a bad thing.
Millions with iPad's are now gamers too. But that didn't make core gamers disappear.
If you used to have (made up numbers obviously) 10m core gamers and a few casual, maybe now you have 10m core and 100m casual. The core market didn't shrink though.
That's pretty much how I think it works, anyway.
Best way I recently heard it is that core gamers appear smaller because the overall number of gamers has greatly increased. That's not a bad thing.
Millions with iPad's are now gamers too. But that didn't make core gamers disappear.
If you used to have (made up numbers obviously) 10m core gamers and a few casual, maybe now you have 10m core and 100m casual. The core market didn't shrink though.
That's pretty much how I think it works, anyway.
That's not Joker's point. He's saying that MS (and Sony) have a choice who to design their product for. Should they put in more horsepower to appeal to the core gamer, or more Kinectiness and fancy UI and services to appeal to the mainstream? If the mainstream generates more income watching Netflix and using Bing and playing the occasional game, it makes business sense to target them over the less profitable core gamer.
However, I don't agree with the hypothesis that non-gamers spend more than gamers.
They still have to target the hardcore, but going forwards I do feel casuals are becoming more and more important.
Simple random anecdotal example, from a girl I recently booked for a shoot. I look at the friends I have that are hardcore gamers and some buy a few apps, but most only stick to free ones. Yeah they are playing the latest core game, but they are still rocking an iPhone 3gs. They basically buy a console and that's the extent of their hardware purchases, and they buy the occasional 'hardcore' game and play that. Contrast this to the last girl I filmed. She has the latest tablet, filled with apps. She has the latest phone also filled with apps. She plays games too, and since she doesn't have pay tv she subscribes to all the usual suspects for her tv and media watching on her digital devices. She clearly spends lots of money on digital purchases and related hardware, as she has lots of disposable income. However Microsoft aren't getting a penny of it because she doesn't own a console. I asked her why just out of curiosity, and her exact answer was "All they have is killing games." Right or wrong that's her perception of game consoles, and because of it this girl who spends more than 6 of my hardcore gamer friends combined is spending her money elsewhere.
Another real but anecdotal example was a girl that was actually a gamer girl. She plays games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim, but she also plays lots of casual type games and like the girl above spends lots of money on digital purchases and digital hardware, far more than your typical hardcore gamer. This girl had a ps3, but the only thing she did on it was play those hardcore type games like Fallout 3. Outside of that her activities shifted to other devices like tablets and phones and that's where she spent the bulk of her money. So Sony got a bit of her money on the hardcore games she played, yet didn't see a penny of all the other money she spent on other devices because they didn't provider her a platform she wanted to be on for those activities. Another monetary opportunity lost.
I can't help but imagine that Microsoft would and should want a piece of this lucrative type of consumer who while considered 'casual', actually still spends a boatload of cash. Yeah keep the hardcore, but there's no reason to me not to target casuals more and more going forward as I feel that is a larger money pool to tap. Right now they are just spending all their money elsewhere, given that Microsoft has computers, tablets, phones and console it seems to me they are in a good position to try capture this type of consumer.
Simple random anecdotal example, from a girl I recently booked for a shoot. I look at the friends I have that are hardcore gamers and some buy a few apps, but most only stick to free ones. Yeah they are playing the latest core game, but they are still rocking an iPhone 3gs. They basically buy a console and that's the extent of their hardware purchases, and they buy the occasional 'hardcore' game and play that. Contrast this to the last girl I filmed. She has the latest tablet, filled with apps. She has the latest phone also filled with apps. She plays games too, and since she doesn't have pay tv she subscribes to all the usual suspects for her tv and media watching on her digital devices. She clearly spends lots of money on digital purchases and related hardware, as she has lots of disposable income. However Microsoft aren't getting a penny of it because she doesn't own a console. I asked her why just out of curiosity, and her exact answer was "All they have is killing games." Right or wrong that's her perception of game consoles, and because of it this girl who spends more than 6 of my hardcore gamer friends combined is spending her money elsewhere.
Another real but anecdotal example was a girl that was actually a gamer girl. She plays games like Fallout 3 and Skyrim, but she also plays lots of casual type games and like the girl above spends lots of money on digital purchases and digital hardware, far more than your typical hardcore gamer. This girl had a ps3, but the only thing she did on it was play those hardcore type games like Fallout 3. Outside of that her activities shifted to other devices like tablets and phones and that's where she spent the bulk of her money. So Sony got a bit of her money on the hardcore games she played, yet didn't see a penny of all the other money she spent on other devices because they didn't provider her a platform she wanted to be on for those activities. Another monetary opportunity lost.
I can't help but imagine that Microsoft would and should want a piece of this lucrative type of consumer who while considered 'casual', actually still spends a boatload of cash. Yeah keep the hardcore, but there's no reason to me not to target casuals more and more going forward as I feel that is a larger money pool to tap. Right now they are just spending all their money elsewhere, given that Microsoft has computers, tablets, phones and console it seems to me they are in a good position to try capture this type of consumer.
I can cite plenty of people who don't own consoles and don't spend lots on media or gadgets either, and I can cite people who buy lots of gadgets and consoles and software and media, and various people in-between. I don't think your sample set is at all representative of the world at large (nor mine, necessarily).
Perhaps but they exist, they are out there and they weren't sufficiently targeted last gen by consoles. As a result they spend their money elsewhere and in turn basically fund and build competing ecosystems. Contrast that with hardcore gamers that are basically always targeted in the console realm and they in turn mostly spent their money on consoles this gen, and likely the same next gen. The hardcore gamers are already a lock, it's time to branch out and get the other money before someone else does.
