Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[Rangers]

More than likely Sony is probably going to have more units. Given what we know MS probably is probably going to have a bigger chip which means Sony will have a yield and chip volume advantage per wafer.

And Sony is a CE company who launches way more hardware products than once ever 4-8 years. This is where Sony should have a definitive advantage here.

Unless Sony has lost its touch, I can't imagine MS having more units.

The GDDR5 vs DDR3 situation can easily cancel out all the above. We dont know.

PS4 is much harder to get a preorder on in the USA where I live, that much I know. Whether it's supply or demand isn't something I can see.

PS4 preorders are sold out everywhere but you can still preorder stand alone Day 1 Xbox at at least two online chains (Best Buy and Microsoft Store). Also XB1 bundles still available at Gamestop a few days ago, etc.

 

[tuna]

All Xbox One are dev kits (I mean retail are devkits too).

Not yet, and not for "real" (MS' Game OS) games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They are going to give away thousands of promotional units and ship millions, having a few for a show would be insignificant.

You're right, in economic terms a few hundred retail units taken from retail for shows is immaterial to the business. But there is a cost, and if you have a choice between using devkits 'for free' or retail units at some price to achieve exactly the same end result, what's the logic in using retail kits at any cost? It'd be an unnecessary tens of thousands of dollars expenditure. That is nothing to billion dollar corporations, but good business is about good economies at all levels!

 

[-tkf-]

I am with Alphawolf, i don't think Sony would have a problem with having a few hundred Consoles at a game convention, but i don't think they ever had to think about it. Since every game demo'd was still under development i think it's obvious that they had to demo on dev kits (whatever that is) so that they could catch show stoppers, etc. Same goes for Microsoft, i would bring my devkits for the same reasons.

A conventional Gameshow after launch would without any doubt use Retail units since they are usually cheaper, and easier to setup. And there would be final code to demonstrate

Tldr, i wouldn't take the hardware used at gamescon as any beacon on how the production is going.

 

[dobwal]

The GDDR5 vs DDR3 situation can easily cancel out all the above. We dont know.

PS4 is much harder to get a preorder on in the USA where I live, that much I know. Whether it's supply or demand isn't something I can see.

PS4 preorders are sold out everywhere but you can still preorder stand alone Day 1 Xbox at at least two online chains (Best Buy and Microsoft Store). Also XB1 bundles still available at Gamestop a few days ago, etc.

True. But the XBox1 is sporting more custom silicon. MS is more likely to run into problems than Sony.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

True. But the XBox1 is sporting more custom silicon. MS is more likely to run into problems than Sony.

It's all on the one SoC, unless you are counting Kinect 2's sensor. That is probably where any issues would lie. I don't know what the specific issues facing a ToF sensor are and whether they can reduce fabrication rate.

 

[liolio]

I think that it is a business decision, they want to maximize their impact in a couples of selected territories. Bad communication and MSFT had really made a lot of wrong choices they are back pedaling on many fronts, I guess it is not that relevant to the masses but clearly I expect some others people to leave once they got out of the launch period, they can't fire them now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think that it is a business decision, they want to maximize their impact in a couples of selected territories. Bad communication and MSFT had really made a lot of wrong choices they are back pedaling on many fronts, I guess it is not that relevant to the masses but clearly I expect some others people to leave once they got out of the launch period, they can't fire them now.

Localisation must be part of the problem because over half the launch countries won't support voice input on day one.

 

[dumbo11]

Maybe it is a dumb theory but... is it possible that they cut down the launch countries because not enough XBL servers (the new servers)?

The new XBL cloud servers are part of the existing azure network (it was confirmed somewhere I think), and that would have been planned a long time in advance anyway.

Personally:
a) I can't understand how this can be discovered <2 months to the end of a 2-3 year project. "You mean they don't speak French in Spain?"
b) I can't understand how they can release bad news (which clearly can't be covered up) in the footnote of a random webpage.

I thought the PR had been going well recently .

 

[Bagel seed]

Why not say that then? It's hardly something to be ashamed of; certainly no moreso than forgetting to localise your console in time for launch!

It's more 'embarrassing' if it's a hardware issue. It could be misconstrued as being unreliable, I guess.

 

[XpiderMX]

The new XBL cloud servers are part of the existing azure network (it was confirmed somewhere I think), and that would have been planned a long time in advance anyway.

Yes, but we don't know if they are planning to add more azure servers before launch.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

a) I can't understand how this can be discovered <2 months to the end of a 2-3 year project. "You mean they don't speak French in Spain?"

Production/development schedules are set, quite often, years in advance. As development continues at some point features or content (in all games, for example) get cut. That's why you often see unfinished code for features or content in shipping games. I'd be willing to bet that if you look at the original development documents for most games, what finally ends up shipping does not include everything they originally intended to put in.

The same goes for any bit of software. Sometimes, a feature becomes far more complex or time consuming to implement than was originally intended. When you start throwing in linguistics and dialect/accent differences that can potentially escalate quite rapidly.

And consider that any given Xbox One in any given country must be able to deal with potentially 6 speakers (Kinect v2 supports up to 6 players simultaneously) all with potentially different accents in real time, and that poses a quite considerable technological challenge.

I'm still relatively surprised by some of the countries not getting it, however. It'd be interesting if we could get a statement from Microsoft about this as it is such a key feature of the console.

Regards,
SB

 

[warb]

It's more 'embarrassing' if it's a hardware issue. It could be misconstrued as being unreliable, I guess.

It's not more embarrassing though, so I'd guess the real reason is the reason they give.

 

[BoardBonobo]

It's not more embarrassing though, so I'd guess the real reason is the reason they give.

But given the 'Red Ring of Death' legacy from the 360, MS must painfully aware that adding even the thought of unreliable hardware to the current PR mix would make the hole they've dug themselves into a grave for the XB1.

But it just seems really, really weird that given the 'localisation' story to suddenly decide that they are OK to release a partially functioning unit in some countries they deem important enough to give a delivery allotment to. But not to those other countries who are causing such a 'localisation' headache. It doesn't really compute. There must be something else behind this that MS are not wanting to be made public.

 

[-tkf-]

I think it's clear that their 1st excuse wasn't the complete truth. I find it hard to believe that they would be surprised again, by the complexity of enabling voice outside USA.

And imho they would make a better impression by launching in more countries even if they sell out, than leaving those markets to Sony.

But I must admit that I would rather wait than having to send my xb1 to repair 10+ times

 

[astrograd]

There is always 'something' sinister behind any information MS puts out. *sigh*

 

[warb]

I don't see how we make the leap from limited supply, if that is the case for whatever reason, to an unreliable end product. I don't think it's a connection that the consumer or legit gaming media would make without unreliable hardware.

And X1 won't be the first console not to launch everywhere at once.

 

[DrJay24]

- 10 of those geos will support some voice features
- We support 8 languages

NOW – the nuance to this is that some voice *features* won’t be available in all countries right away. “Xbox On”, for instance, is only available in 5

This is just strange, you support some voice features in 8 languages, but "Xbox on" in 5?

 

[liolio]

Localisation must be part of the problem because over half the launch countries won't support voice input on day one.

It might though it smells like something else.
MSFT just gave the GPU (at least) a minor clock boost which is not in line with the noise about yields.
On top of it they did not really advertize that speed bump. I guess they find out lots of chips were working within the expected TDP at that speed.

I wonder if it has more to do with MSFT market penetration in the countries that got 'excluded" from the list. It seems they passed on pretty tiny market for which localization has low ROI, I wish I had data about those markets (size of gaming market, MSFT vs Sony vs PC market share, etc.).
Somebody should ask Pachter even though he doesn't leak numbers usually he may give some insight.

EDIT I mean there is more here than meet the eyes, we may not speak that much units saved for more "important" markets but there is the cost of shipping, dealing with retailers, advertizement, costumer services, and so on.

 

[dagamer]

This is just strange, you support some voice features in 8 languages, but "Xbox on" in 5?

"Xbox On" detection likely uses a different subsystem that is adapted to use as little power as possible compared to all other voice commands.