Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[Rangers]

I don't think those territories are as enthusiastic for MS as Sony, and so launching in them likely won't yield great sales. Going by chat here anyway, and peeps from those countries reporting on availability and disinterest.

So PS4 is selling that much relatively worse in the 13 MS already launched in, to reach our overall sales rate?

Those other markets are likely mostly pitiably tiny, not necessarily in population terms but in consoles sales terms. The biggest ones left over are Norway/Sweden/Finland/The Netherlands, and when you're including a country with a total population of 5 million as a "big one"...

Yes I agree Sony is bigger there, although Sweden is actually quite competitive for Xbox going by the charts.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So PS4 is selling that much relatively worse in the 13 MS already launched in, to reach our overall sales rate?

I'm saying those new territories are likely to bring even less gains to MS than to Sony, making their influence on an XB1 upswing even more muted.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Unfortunately for Microsoft all territories are not equal. Looking at the population sizes of the previously mentioned Scandinavian countries, it won't make a great deal of difference to their sales:

Sweden: 9.7m
Norway: 5.1m
Finland: 5.5m

And for perspective, if you take one city, London, and it's metro population size which is 15m you can take any two of those countries combined and they're around the same size of England's capital city. Kind of puts it into perspective. That's not to mention the behemoth that is the USA.

Microsoft have released Xbox One in the territories where their sales were always strong, they have not yet released in the countries where they're not so good.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

“They’re in 40+ markets, we’re in 13” is marketing fluff

 

[upnorthsox]

So what's Sony's response to the Xbox 180? I don't know that a major response is needed but they do want to counter punch (which they failed to do with the 3DS when it price dropped). Probably something in their PS+ offering would be the best place to counter.

Of course, today would be a pretty good day to have data dump for the new Uncharted.................

 

[Brad Grenz]

It's rude to punch a guy while he's still tangled in the ropes.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony carry on as is. They've had positive momentum for all of this gen so far. If someone asks them for a PR soundbite, they can just waffle on about MS following their footsteps in giving gamers value with a sneaky nod to greater power. Sony can probably also go toe-to-toe with MS's exclusives argument. I read more about indie games coming to PS4 than XB1 by and large, for example, with an upcoming Occulus Rift game headed to PS4 and Morpheus now. Morpheus could be a really big thing.

For the first time in 7 years, Sony are clearly on top again. Just keeping their mouths shut is enough to stay there as neither MS nor Nintendo have any really decent competitive position at the mo'.

 

[Blazkowicz]

If Sony dropped price now, so early, it would send the message that afterall maybe the other console is better.

.. No need to do anything.
To make an analogy with PC hardware, Intel and AMD sell i5 and FX 8000 series at the same price, and Intel has the more powerful and leaner CPU. Intel could drop the i5's price by $50 if they wanted, but it's not what they do.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Why would Sony drop their price? THey are outselling MS at a price people are willing to pay. They should only drop the price when sales drop significantly. They should be focused on maximizing their revenue per unit, since the demand is so high.

Microsoft on the other hand is looking to increase demand, and do so without a loss, so they've unbundled Kinect. It should probably work for them.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Yes, it's spin but my anecdotal evidence shows there might be a little truth to it. I'm pretty happy with my 360 right now that I don't feel the need to upgrade just yet. Whether or not there are more happy 360 owners than PS3 there's no way of knowing. So I was kind of surprised to see him say that. However, I could see how a PS3 owner would be happy to upgrade now, smaller slick looking box with the best hardware of this gen, showing off better multiplatform games all for something that's only at most $100 more than what they paid for their PS3. Remember there are only about 10-12 million next-gen console sales so far. A small fraction of the total 360/PS3 userbase. That's a lot of 360/PS3 owners that haven't upgraded.

Tommy McClain

Don't follow your logic, Bat.

Why would PS3 owners be more likely than 360 owners to upgrade? The PS3 is a fine, very capable machine, and Last Of Us proved it is really just hitting its potential. When was the last Uber Release for the 360?

Now, I can't stand the PS3 interface or the controller, but if I were one of "those PS3 owners", I'd be just as happy with my PS3 as a 360 owner.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

You also have to wonder: if Sony managed to catch up with the 360, despite the PS3 launching a year later and costing significantly more for a large portion of its life, can the Xbox brand really compete with PS at the same price, with weaker hardware and (in all likelihood) weaker exclusives?

This is a good point worthy of discussion. The 360 had all the leverage in the world through the majority of the generation, despite the fact they had to overcome a number of difficulties - the PS3 constantly being report through all gaming and major media as more powerful, and the RRoD manufacturing problems.

Yet, despite what a great job MS was able to do with the 360, at the end of the generation all the press and sales were going back to the PS3. The PS3 should have never been able to catch-up, but they did.

Back to your point, Interference, what that demonstrates to me is how strong the Playstation brand actually is. And that while people weren't willing to "get a second job" to pay for one, they did clamor to buy them when they became affordable.

Right now, it seems like MS seems to think their Xbox brand is a strong as it was a few years ago - before Sony reaped the rewards of Playstation brand value. Because it seems like the only selling point the Xbox currently has is its brand (including familiarity and friends lists).

 

[AzBat]

Don't follow your logic, Bat.

Why would PS3 owners be more likely than 360 owners to upgrade? The PS3 is a fine, very capable machine, and Last Of Us proved it is really just hitting its potential. When was the last Uber Release for the 360?

Now, I can't stand the PS3 interface or the controller, but if I were one of "those PS3 owners", I'd be just as happy with my PS3 as a 360 owner.

I compare the general PS owner to the general Apple owner. Something newer, faster & better looking than what they are already had. They gotta have it now regardless of other competing products. You've seen that here in this very forum. I see most 360 owners as price conscious(not exactly poor like me). Ones that don't absolutely need or want the upper echelon of technology. If they had, wouldn't they have had bought a PS3? Plus, the 10,000 different priced SKUs bear out the choice of buy at a low price now & upgrade to bigger storage, wireless, adn/or Kinect, etc. later when it was feasible. I think those owners are waiting for their lower priced upgrade path & I think once a proper Halo sequel is here MS will have that planned out.

Tommy McClain

 

[Jwm]

I see that point, but I have talked with many that own either last gen system and they are happy to not upgrade yet. I early adopted out of curiosity, but last gen I waited a few years to be honest. Software sales does show us a trend, but overall stuff is still selling on last gen systems.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I compare the general PS owner to the general Apple owner.

Whereas in reality, PS3 owners are just like XB360 in being a mixed demographic. Any early adopter has that mentality, which includes the first 10 million who bought an XB360 or a PS3, and the first 5 million who bought either XB1 or PS4. The longevity of previous PS platforms shows there's no such thing as a common 'want faster' mentality in PS owners. Hell, people jump ship just as much as they upgrade ASAP. Forums full of 'core gamers' all want the best, latest console, and then buy from the options available. Everyone else bides their time and buys when the price and games are right for them.

One can even point to the diminishing Apple sales as evidence even the 'Apple owner' isn't as upgrade obsessed as you suggest. There's a cadre of strong fans who will upgrade to the latest, greatest, but most owners hang onto their current iPad until the right time to switch.

The notion that 360 owners are more enamoured with their current device than PS3 owners is founded on nothing. It's just a PR excuse. "Our last product was so truly awesome, people still value it, whereas the rivals was so crappy people can't way to move on," is clearly spin. Sony could equally spin, "our new console is so awesome that people can't wait to upgrade, whereas our rivals new console is so poop, people would rather stick with the old, outdated model." Two ridiculously polarised, unfounded interpretations of the same set of circumstances.

 

[Rangers]

You also have to wonder: if Sony managed to catch up with the 360, despite the PS3 launching a year later and costing significantly more for a large portion of its life, can the Xbox brand really compete with PS at the same price, with weaker hardware and (in all likelihood) weaker exclusives?

Every gen is different though. Last time PS2 was sitting on 150 million and Xbox on 25 million. MS had a mountain to climb to catch up to parity, which Sony's missteps allowed them to do. This time, they go into the gen as roughly equals. IMO you can already see that. If someone told you before this gen, MS would launch a apparently substantially weaker console at $100 more, you'd think Xbox would be completely dead in the water and sell nearly zero. Instead, it's actually sold decently well, especially in North America, and is a viable console that gets roughly equal with PS support from all major third parties.

 

[wco81]

The Apple owner is paying a premium for their devices.

Sony doesn't enjoy a premium with the PS4. It thought it could get a premium with the PS3, just as MS thought it could command a premium relative to the competition with the X1.

 

[Prophecy2k]

The notion that 360 owners are more enamoured with their current device than PS3 owners is founded on nothing. It's just a PR excuse. "Our last product was so truly awesome, people still value it, whereas the rivals was so crappy people can't way to move on," is clearly spin. Sony could equally spin, "our new console is so awesome that people can't wait to upgrade, whereas our rivals new console is so poop, people would rather stick with the old, outdated model." Two ridiculously polarised, unfounded interpretations of the same set of circumstances.

So true...

Although whilst I often expect PR mouthpieces like Mehdi to come out with useless comments like this, given the crap he and the majority of the rest of MS were spouting last year, I just hope for MS' sake that they don't actually believe that there are like 80million 360-owners who haven't yet bought an xbone because they are merely "satisfied with their 360", as if that's the only reason.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Unfortunately for Microsoft, as the last 18 months have demonstrated, it's hard to tell where the spin ends and the toxic corporate groupthink begins.

 

[Phil]

Every gen is different though. Last time PS2 was sitting on 150 million and Xbox on 25 million. MS had a mountain to climb to catch up to parity, which Sony's missteps allowed them to do. This time, they go into the gen as roughly equals.

IMO - that is the problem. They are not. They are launching side by side, first trying at a higher price with an expensive add-on that is/was central to their vision but at the cost of performance - then later this year, at price parity, without a one distinguishing feature they had but still at a fairly big performance differential. At the same time. Effectively, we now get Xbox brandname vs. the PlayStation brandname (+ better performance).

If Microsoft had come out at the same time, at the same price with equal machinery and a "vision" that target the core-gamers (+ perhaps the Kinect stuff) at the same price, but only slightly higher - it could have worked. I would think it would be logical to assume that most 60-80million Xbox users outthere would be happy to upgrade and stay on the platform they've been happy with to beginn with.

The high price, the muddled vision of chasing after a more livingroom centered device with Kinect in its main focus scared away a lot of its loyal gamers. As the poll created I think showed at some point - there were (at least on this forum) more Xbox users willing to switch to the PlayStation brand than the other way around. I also think that many of the Xbox most loyal fanbase - the fans and consumers who made the original Xbox a moderate success - come from a PC gaming background. The Xbox was the one platform that catered more so to those gamers - offering better graphics (than the PS2), easier development (bringing along lots of PC centric developers) and as a result, got a lot of shooters which is a very attractive genre on PCs. They were also the first to offer a dedicated online service (Live) which layed the ground work for the future with online-gaming on consoles.

I see these fans of the original Xbox console to not be catered for with the Xbox One. X360 continued the trend the original Xbox started (good online gaming, good gaming performance, perfect price point, all a year ahead of the opposition), but the new Xbox One did not. There are no doubt still a lot of loyal fans of the Xbox brandname, but even if a third of the other fans were willing to change ship - either going back to PC gaming or to the PlayStation brand (because that's the brand that effectively is offering the best performance at the lowest price), it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the future IMO.

The PlayStation brandname is strong. For years, it stands for diverse gaming, from family games to strong Japanese support. Over the years and since PS3, it also caught up on multi player gaming (at the time for free), a strong online service and it also has most high selling shooters through multi-platform support.

The bad news for Xbox is that the PS4 is perfectly priced, focused on what core gamers want, has a lot of performance for its price - and best of all - is easy (if not arguably easier) to develop for than the Xbox One - something it failed to do on both the PS3 and PS2. This means that many multi-platform developers can easily extract more performance from the PS4 because both machines are quite similar with the exception of the easier memory subsystem and more performance. This results in that the majority of multi-platform games will likely look better on the PS4 - ranging from hardly distinguishable to noticable.

What's keeping the Xbox One in this race so far is because there are quite a lot of happy X360 customers outthere, that don't mind the performance differential (or don't think it's big enough) and because lots of friends are willing to stay on Xbox - so staying with the brand means you still get to play with your friends. Then there are the few Xbox centric exclusives. Still, I personally think - they either need to lower the price further, or keep Kinect as a distinguishing feature. They've killed of the latter and sadly, there's nothing they can do to get back that performance differential.

At the end of all of this; I do wonder sometimes if the Xbox gamer (the core-gamer) - the one who effectively made the original Xbox a success - is more interested in graphics than perhaps the loyal PlayStation users outthere. Could this be a factor?

 

[Nesh]

IMO - that is the problem. They are not. They are launching side by side, first trying at a higher price with an expensive add-on that is/was central to their vision but at the cost of performance - then later this year, at price parity, without a one distinguishing feature they had but still at a fairly big performance differential. At the same time. Effectively, we now get Xbox brandname vs. the PlayStation brandname (+ better performance).

If Microsoft had come out at the same time, at the same price with equal machinery and a "vision" that target the core-gamers (+ perhaps the Kinect stuff) at the same price, but only slightly higher - it could have worked. I would think it would be logical to assume that most 60-80million Xbox users outthere would be happy to upgrade and stay on the platform they've been happy with to beginn with.

The high price, the muddled vision of chasing after a more livingroom centered device with Kinect in its main focus scared away a lot of its loyal gamers. As the poll created I think showed at some point - there were (at least on this forum) more Xbox users willing to switch to the PlayStation brand than the other way around. I also think that many of the Xbox most loyal fanbase - the fans and consumers who made the original Xbox a moderate success - come from a PC gaming background. The Xbox was the one platform that catered more so to those gamers - offering better graphics (than the PS2), easier development (bringing along lots of PC centric developers) and as a result, got a lot of shooters which is a very attractive genre on PCs. They were also the first to offer a dedicated online service (Live) which layed the ground work for the future with online-gaming on consoles.

I see these fans of the original Xbox console to not be catered for with the Xbox One. X360 continued the trend the original Xbox started (good online gaming, good gaming performance, perfect price point, all a year ahead of the opposition), but the new Xbox One did not. There are no doubt still a lot of loyal fans of the Xbox brandname, but even if a third of the other fans were willing to change ship - either going back to PC gaming or to the PlayStation brand (because that's the brand that effectively is offering the best performance at the lowest price), it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the future IMO.

The PlayStation brandname is strong. For years, it stands for diverse gaming, from family games to strong Japanese support. Over the years and since PS3, it also caught up on multi player gaming (at the time for free), a strong online service and it also has most high selling shooters through multi-platform support.

The bad news for Xbox is that the PS4 is perfectly priced, focused on what core gamers want, has a lot of performance for its price - and best of all - is easy (if not arguably easier) to develop for than the Xbox One - something it failed to do on both the PS3 and PS2. This means that many multi-platform developers can easily extract more performance from the PS4 because both machines are quite similar with the exception of the easier memory subsystem and more performance. This results in that the majority of multi-platform games will likely look better on the PS4 - ranging from hardly distinguishable to noticable.

What's keeping the Xbox One in this race so far is because there are quite a lot of happy X360 customers outthere, that don't mind the performance differential (or don't think it's big enough) and because lots of friends are willing to stay on Xbox - so staying with the brand means you still get to play with your friends. Then there are the few Xbox centric exclusives. Still, I personally think - they either need to lower the price further, or keep Kinect as a distinguishing feature. They've killed of the latter and sadly, there's nothing they can do to get back that performance differential.

At the end of all of this; I do wonder sometimes if the Xbox gamer (the core-gamer) - the one who effectively made the original Xbox a success - is more interested in graphics than perhaps the loyal PlayStation users outthere. Could this be a factor?

Oh yes indeed. I agree with your points about Xbox and the 360. The Xbox was the console that packed a PC-like performance and a lot of PC style shooters. The 360 continued the trend and kind of "infected" the console industry with FPS and PC like third person shooters which increased their popularity.

Sony managed to bring a significant portion of the PC experience and the whole console experience in one box this time. I tried some Blacklight retribution and Warframe recently and they are 60fps shooters that play and look like what you would get from a core PC experience. And they run GORGEOYSLY. Then you ve got console centric games like Infamous doing wonders. They nailed it. Indie devs and the Free to Play games helped a lot

I do believe that the core XB gamer is indeed attracted to the performance for the reasons you noted. The Xbox's upper card was the performance and FPS quality you couldnt get on consoles before. This is what made Halo great. The 360 had the better multiplatform games and came first with its visually mindblowing games like Gears of War when PS3 was struggling to launch and prove its capabilities. The core 360 gamer believes that the 360 had the better games and the better performance. Sonethibg that cannot be claimed with the XB1

The XB1 failed to repeat the amazing entrance. Ryse could have been that game but its closer to being a Heavenly Sword than Gears or Halo.

PS4 stole the thunder from all fronts. Better price, better performance and more rounded gaming experience.