Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox
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The VP of Microsoft's Media & Entertainment group Blair Westlake has resigned. The former chairman of Universal Studios Media & Exec who consulted for Comcast and NBCU and who was a key person in spearheading the content/media functionality of Xbox One & 360 has quit citing things at Microsoft are now heading in a different direction that "doesn't fit his expertise or skill set".
According to a new report from Variety, Corporate VP of Microsoft’s Media and Entertainment Group Blair Westlake has resigned after a decade spent with the company.
“It has become clear to me that the organization is moving in a direction that does not fit either my expertise or my skill sets,” said Westlake. “Over the last few months Microsoft has been undergoing a large-scale reorganization. During that period, I have had the privilege of working with numerous talented and professional people. While I will miss their company and our interaction, I truly believe that this move is in the best interest of all parties concerned."
http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/blair-westlake-resigns-from-microsoft-1201059105/
I couldn't find it mentioned anywhere in the thread.
Ten days prior to Blair Westlake resigning, Julie Larson-Green in an interview during CES states that one-size-fits-all all-in-one devices with multiple functions may not be what the consumer is looking for and the industry is still trying to find out exactly what it is the consumer is looking for. They lose a bit of their magic. She sites such devices as the Kindle & Fitbit as those that have lost their magic by straying from single purpse devices to multipurose all on one one size fits all devices.
Now although it is a rumor, it looks like we'll see that concurrent multitasking "snap mode" will be reduced via the OS update that will reduce the gpu reservation from 10% to 2%.
Although Xbox is focused on games and sofar has delivers even more gaming "content" than PS4 & Gamecube, perhaps this is a redoubling of efforts to focus on games while lessening the focus on future apps & media for Xbox One (eg the Spielberg Halo tv series project may be the last we see this generation of large projects on the media side for the Xbox)
That's one of the most interesting videos I've watched in a while. Nice to see Julie Larson Green giving her opinion. People and customers are mostly unpredictable.
I am okay with an unified infrastructure. In fact, that's one of the things I like the most about Xbox One.
I get my Xbox Live messages in my PC if I want to. I upload Xbox clips in a jiffy to Skydrive, then I can share, download them, etc, there, or move them somewhere else, like Youtube. Easiest thing of the world.
What I hope is that they don't reduce the "overall quality" of the console removing things or decreasing the quality of materials.
Xbox One is the most robust and reliable console they've created and you can see the fine quality of materials not just outside, but also in the innards.
I mean, Xbox One's motherboard is the most clean/reliable looking one of this generation. Nintendo always had functional innards, Sony have somewhat dropped the ball with the PS4, compared to PS3.
Microsoft on the other hand improved a lot in that sense., although it reflects on the price.
I remember seeing pictures of the PS4 and XB1 motherboards when the first tear downs popped up and PS4 struck me as much more elegant etc.
So I had to google pictures, just to double check.
http://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/xbox-one-motherboard.jpg
http://gamingbolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/LR_41.jpg
Being no expert, I still think the PS4 looks more elegant and better laid out.
What are your reasons for saying XB1 is better?
If you are part of the Microsoft tribe it may be easy, but outside that tribe I don't consider it easy. Downloading and uploading to YouTube isn't what I would consider easy. imho Microsoft totally dropped the ball on their sharing service. Considering how early they announced Twitch.tv i am surprised that they didn't even have that at launch. They are by far the weakest offering when it comes to the social, live experience. The only way to go is to embrace as many social services as possible and not just try to boost your own.
And i just don't understand how you can claim anything about who dropped the ball on anything. It's clearly two different approaches, one is made with design and size in mind, utilizing everything that the company has in ce experience (did you see the presentation on the cooling system?).
The xb1 is a very uninspired conservative approach meant to look like something old fashioned as a stand alone optical media player.
Imho not a bad choice, it's cheaper to design and cheaper to get the parts, and considering Microsoft's unmatched failure rate for the original 360 I am certain they went with something they felt comfortable with.
How on earth they then decided to use a external PSU with a active cooling system and a also ended up with a fan in the Kinect is simply beyond me..
Reliable is something we know in 5 years, unless you know something we don't..
Michellstar
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Well, they could greenlight some of the lost policies, wasn´t XO supposed to let trade digital games through authorised partners?
No question it would hurt their business and let's face it the impact on the used games sales would be significant but they can still sell download keys on their websites or in stores. Maybe we'll see a partnership much like Sony has with Amazon.
They would have both skus and the market would essentially decide, not a bad thing though I don't like it one bit
But there is one thing about this, imho wouldn't this sku cater most to the financial careful people, and with the prices on dd vs physical it doesn't take long to see the raised price for gaming with this.
And imho it would have to be cheaper than the PS4 in order to compete on price.
When it comes to digital vs. physical media for movies, you find better deals on physical media, at least in the US.
Big box retailers routinely advertise and sell older Blu Ray movies for under $10. Probably to help attract traffic to the stores where they may buy other things in addition to the bargain movies.
Or maybe the studios want to clear their inventory.
You'll find the same digital titles on iTunes and other online sites selling for $15 or $20.
Big box retailers routinely advertise and sell older Blu Ray movies for under $10. Probably to help attract traffic to the stores where they may buy other things in addition to the bargain movies.
Or maybe the studios want to clear their inventory.
You'll find the same digital titles on iTunes and other online sites selling for $15 or $20.
My opinion is based on what I have seen in this PlayStation 4 teardown video when it was published. Exactly after the 23 minutes mark.
Trust me it is very easy. The videos I shared on my Powerstar Golf thread, for instance, were created in less than a minute and then uploaded in a jiffy.
"Xbox record that" --> Edit --> Trim --> Finish --> Name video --> Upload. All your friends can watch your videos. You can download them.
I have many friends sharing videos everyday, not only on life, but also on forums.
Example 1:
http://sdrv.ms/LxLr3G
Example 2:
http://sdrv.ms/LxLEnI
Alas I am not into Twitch for now, but I know many people are unhappy with that. The parties on Xbox One really need to improve, too.
Additionally, I was mentioning the quality of materials. Xbox One's gamepads are robust, and there are reports of Dualshocks wearing, plus the headset is denigrating to what's inside the PS4. It tires the hell out of me mentioning the PS4 and the Xbox One in the same post.
Finally, regarding reliability... the Xbox One allegedly can be powered on for 10 years, 24 hours a day if you want to. Dunno what to say.
We shall see.... I usually throttle down my most powerful laptop by downclocking it.
Looking at those two images the one thing that really strikes me is how busy the XB MB is. The PS4 is pretty sparse in comparison. Must make for a cost saving through less component use?
And that chip that was an unknown is identified on that pic as a Renesas ASIC - this can be anything from a Cell based controller to programmable LSI or Analog. Trying to find a component sales breakdown from Renesas that might nail it completely.
I think you will need to write what you meant by it? That video only shows one board being alot bigger than the other,.
As i said, embrace as many social services as possible, skydrive would hardly be that.
In order to be a success they (imho) need to publish to facebook and youtube, and downloading and uploading doesn't count
Neither i am i, but Twitch.TV is apparently where gamers go today, when Sony announced Ustream i thought they were messing up, and Microsoft had that one covered, but today some 7 months after Microsoft announced they were partnering with Twitch there isn't any live streaming.
Is what you said, if that is based on Microsofts claim they designed the machine to run for 87600 hours then cool enough. Not that i think the reliability has anything to do in this thread, not now at least.
If Microsoft were to backup their claim with a 5 year warranty or we suddenly saw one kinect after another fail because if the built in fan, it might belong here..
But the sharing aspects of these new consoles is a real subject to content with. It's like free advertising and they need to get up to speed on that... The number of videos i have shared to my Facebook feed is alot higher than i expected, and i am advertising for the PS4 with each one, and my friends see these awesome games and think... "i need that"*
*Maybe
.
You guys need to stop beating a dead horse. There are memory chips on the back of the PSS4 board as well so if you were to move them onto the top side it would appear just as "busy" as the XBO board.
With that said MS has come a long way in terms of electronics hardware design and integration given they were basically a software only company a few years ago. The fact they can effortlessly roll their own hardware in-house is a huge advantage. They're just like Apple now...
With that said MS has come a long way in terms of electronics hardware design and integration given they were basically a software only company a few years ago. The fact they can effortlessly roll their own hardware in-house is a huge advantage. They're just like Apple now...
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That's an if that would not come to pass because the GDDR5 chips are in clamshell mode and need to be mounted on opposite sides so they can split the memory bus and share command lines.
Even if not, GDDR5 is designed to modify the timing of its data lines so that they don't need to keep equal length by taking up more board space with serpentine routing, so the PS4 board could have less space between the APU and DRAM.
And if I moved the crap in my backyard into my front yard it would look busier, the point is the final solution is functional and clean.
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