Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[liolio]

Well, you know their original price target was XB1 with Kinect for $399.

Not all the slides are here, only a couple actually, but Yukon aimed at 299$:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405922,00.asp
At the beginning of the article.

I don't remember but those slides were quite dated, 2010 I assume as the "road ahead" starts in 2011 (some more slides are here)? It showcases the problem pretty well: inflexible decision process, once some basis decision are taken there is no turning back even if the plan is drastically altered: price and specs.

Going through those slides again I found a 4-6 increase in perf in game, x6 "system wise" which is definitely in line with the way I read the prospective specs for the system.

I think BC and IBM process/edram might have been given upon either fall 2010 early 2011.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Not all the slides are here, only a couple actually, but Yukon aimed at 299$:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405922,00.asp
At the beginning of the article.

I don't remember but those slides were quite dated, 2010 I assume as the "road ahead" starts in 2011 (some more slides are here)? It showcases pretty well: inflexible decision process, once some basis decision are taken there is no turning back even if the plan is drastically altered: price and specs.

Going through those slides again I found a 4-6 increase in perf in game, x6 "system wise" which is definitely in line with the way I read the prospective specs for the system.

I think BC and IBM process/edram might have been given upon either fall 2010 early 2011.

Looks like digitalfoundry might be doing a similar analysis, a bunch of Yukon images have appeared on my Android app's feed.

 

[function]

I'm having to interrupt a holiday to post this by phone from a hot, busy service station that's full of 'people', because opinion.

If MS are serious about recovering Xbone they'll announce 349 for the Kinectless bone, along with a drop for the 'premium' model. The pre E3 announcement of Kinectless bone is a simply a play to slow 360 ship jumping until then.

If MS stay with 399/499 as the price structure then it means they're simply riding out the Bone with minimal losses before trying again in 2017.

I've stopped feeling bad about Kinect. MS never had any real intention to either push it as a gaming platform or support it as one. Maybe that will change under Spencer, of maybe they'll just shitcan it after another 12 months later of basically meaningless games support.

 

[liolio]

I'm having to interrupt a holiday to post this by phone from a hot, busy service station that's full of 'people', because opinion.

If MS are serious about recovering Xbone they'll announce 349 for the Kinectless bone, along with a drop for the 'premium' model. The pre E3 announcement of Kinectless bone is a simply a play to slow 360 ship jumping until then.

If MS stay with 399/499 as the price structure then it means they're simply riding out the Bone with minimal losses before trying again in 2017.

I've stopped feeling bad about Kinect. MS never had any real intention to either push it as a gaming platform or support it as one. Maybe that will change under Spencer, of maybe they'll just shitcan it after another 12 months later of basically meaningless games support.

I think Medhi Yusuf hinted at upcoming Christmas rebate from Forbes interview:

A price cut for the Xbox One was rumored for a while and everyone was wondering how you’d do it. When you were devising ways knock the price down, was removing Kinect the only thing on the table, or were there other options considered?

The way we think about this is that the ability to offer more choice as to how you package these bundles is a no-brainer. This way we’re allowing more people to come and try it, and based on the feedback we’d gotten, that made sense. Certainly, it’s part of the general marketing of Xbox One. We’ve had promotional offers with games included with Xbox One. If you look back to Xbox 360, we’ve done temporary price reductions. We’re going to be doing those throughout the lifecycle of the console. The way I think about this is that you’re repackaging to allow you to have a better opening price.

Given the circumstances I think this Christmas is a given.

For Kinect sadly for now it looks like a soft EOL of the product, they might plan a relaunch, though when is a completely different matter

 

[liolio]

This reminds me of an old saying; a camel is a horse designed by committee. You could well be right with this.

Excellent saying I'll try to remember it

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Camels are very well suited for their habitat though, so if anything, the saying points to the value of design by committee.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Camels are very well suited for their habitat though, so if anything, the saying points to the value of design by committee.

Probably best not to take it literally.

 

[Arwin]

If anything, the PS4 was designed by committee - in close collaboration with developers, asking them for advice and taking them on board very early. And yes, a camel is a great design. Unfortunately, right now they're also spreading a scary disease (MERS).

 

[upnorthsox]

If anything, the PS4 was designed by committee - in close collaboration with developers, asking them for advice and taking them on board very early. And yes, a camel is a great design. Unfortunately, right now they're also spreading a scary disease (MERS).

As always, be careful humping a camel..........

 

[Phil]

I think Sony solved their biggest weakness on the PS3. The PS3 was powerful, but too complex. While 1st/2nd party were able to extract very good performance out of exclusives, multiplatform titles suffered a long time.

This time around; they have more powerful hardware more easily extractable. That is win/win. Win/win because for the same amount of effort (or minimal effort), a multiplatform developer can get more out of PS4 hardware than he can on Xbox One. Even if the "more" only amounts to better resolution, it's something that's quantifiable to the consumer. This advantage comes at another one: The PS4 is cheap, making it win/win/win.

It will be interesting how a Xbox One without Kinect at the same price manages sales wise. At price parity, they won't be able to gain an advantage on the performance and ease of development side of things - so IMO, they need to differentiate their product. Microsofts biggest trumpcard IMO is that they as a software company have a foot in the mobile-phone sector, tablets, the PC and also the game market. That should technically give them options Sony can't match as well. I would expect Windows <-> Xbox integration to be much stronger than it is. Then there is software and also the point that they should try to tie their customers to their brandname/console. If I were Microsoft, I would develop an eco-system where you can buy an app for Windows Phone, but use it on Xbox as well - similarly to what you can already do on iPhone, Android and even Windows handheld devices. A system where you buy a product but can use on multiple devices. I'm amazed that they haven't already done (and marketed) this on a grandscale already. One product sells the other. If people can use their products (even games) on multiple devices, it adds value. Value that would not only benefit the Xbox brandname, but the Windows one as well. This is where IMO Kinect would have been important: if people use their fingers to navigate programs on their mobile devices (touch devices), Kinect would be the logical interface in a TV/livingroom setup. Or they should have added some touchpad of some sort with the Xbox to make that cross-over to the handheld/windows ecosystem.

PlayStation has always stood for great games. A large majority of customers are thus drawn to the PlayStation brand, even if perhaps sometimes, it's not the best or cheapest console. Microsoft needs to build up something similar: Push games like Halo that is or will become synonymous with the Xbox brandname. This will strengthened the bond between its consumer base and the brand.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Well, I live in the EU so I'd much rather a horse thankyouverymuch.

The more I think about the analogy, the more it actually fits. I think the Xbox One was designed for its environment (the US), due to the TV functions that work in the US and the American Football, etc.

 

[liolio]

If anything, the PS4 was designed by committee - in close collaboration with developers, asking them for advice and taking them on board very early. And yes, a camel is a great design. Unfortunately, right now they're also spreading a scary disease (MERS).

Design by committee may have been a poor choice of word anyway to describe the process that guide XB1 development.

For SOny I do not agree Cerny seems to have a strong lead, he was open mind and receptive to its partners wishes and returns that is different.

The Cell was a really design by committee.

XB1 is something else, I don't know what to call it. It looks akin to a "ploughing ox" to me, once a decision is taken you can stir slightly right or left there is no going back.
Too much inertia and inner organizational constraints.

EDIT actually I don't question the design, Yukon was OK for what it was supposed to do: it was coherent with the business plan they have, it is the decision process and how decision a reviewed in face of changing circumstances.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The weirdest thing I find about these discussions about how Microsoft got their hardware so wrong, is that the hardware is pretty much the same as what's in the PS4, with some marginal differences. They have different RAM. Otherwise, they're basically the same. It's pretty much exactly the same CPU and the same GPU architecture, with the PS4 version being scaled up a little. Compared to other gens, these differences are marginal. But Sony are geniuses that did everything right and Microsoft are closed-minded, mismanaged. Besides Sony betting on GDDR at the start, and Microsoft betting on a small pool of embedded RAM, their decisions basically took them to exactly the same place. You can argue Kinect and pricing outside of that, and the vision of the software and services, but hardware they pretty much both did the same thing.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Compared to other gens, these differences are marginal.

The GPUs have the same underlying tech, only the differences are definitely not marginal. Much greater than the 360-PS3 variation.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The GPUs have the same underlying tech, only the differences are definitely not marginal. Much greater than the 360-PS3 variation.

How so? It's literally the same GPU generation from the same vendor. One is just a scaled up version of the other. The hardware between the 360 and PS3 was vastly different. There is a performance gap between the PS4 GPU and the X1 GPU, but they both decided on exactly the same technology. Same CPU, same GPU, just different RAM.

 

[Arwin]

The GPUs have the same underlying tech, only the differences are definitely not marginal. Much greater than the 360-PS3 variation.

I think if anything, the differences stand out more because the systems are so close.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think if anything, the differences stand out more because the systems are so close.

It's definitely much more easy to compare the hardware specs than it's ever been. And you'll probably see a lot of optimizations on one platform carry over to the other this gen. Everything is about data layout and cache optimization, or at least it seems that way, and they basically have the same cache structure for the GPU. X1 has ESRAM to deal with, but compared to dealing with PS3 last-gen, it's probably trivial. It'll be interesting to see cost comparisons for supporting multi-platform this gen vs last gen. I'd expect to see it require a lot less time and people, relative to the increasing scale of games.

 

[upnorthsox]

And had Sony stuck with the 4GB of RAM instead of going with 8GB, everything would be switched around.

But then, this is all about insidious bias so................

 

[Deleted member 86764]

How so? It's literally the same GPU generation from the same vendor. One is just a scaled up version of the other. The hardware between the 360 and PS3 was vastly different. There is a performance gap between the PS4 GPU and the X1 GPU, but they both decided on exactly the same technology. Same CPU, same GPU, just different RAM.

I'm referring specifically to performance.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I'm referring specifically to performance.

Yah, but you get my point right? It's kind of strange to talk about how X1 is "design by committee" whatever that means, where Sony was "open and listened to developers", and they pretty much have exactly the same hardware. If anything, it seems like AMD must have had more input into the overall design, because they came up with two nearly-identical solutions that fit into the same price range.

In terms of vision for the platform? Yah, you can argue that to death, but even there the differences are not that big. Microsoft chose to bundle a peripheral and Sony chose to focus only on games where Microsoft tried to sell their box as a media-center. Sony's strategy was obviously much better.

We're talking about two boxes that are nearly the same, where most of the difference is in how they've been marketed, not the actual product. I'm not denying the performance gap between the two consoles, but I'm also not sure that's the be-all and end-all issue that people are making it out to be.