Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[ERP]

I'm kinda wondering if MS should have gone digital only for their games and launched with the blu ray drive disabled and forced consumers to pay 50 bucks to unlock it. They could have knocked the price down by 50 dollars until you paid to have it unlocked which would have helped make up the price point difference and made the DRM policy look more coherent. The drive could have been used for DVDs and CDs without the key.

I think Rancid made the point a couple days ago that the drive is in part what makes their DRM approach look so bad.

Just not possible for the next 5 or so years, cuts out too much of your user base because of bandwidth caps and game sizes.
I suspect the turning point in the decision came when main stream media started to pick up the story, I'm not sure that would have happened 8 years ago. And the relative preorders that they were seeing at retail in the US.

 

[warb]

You can't currentlty share DD games without giving up your account detail or travelling yourself. Adding a name to a list was a step up from that.

The changes to download games were hugely positive.

 

[temesgen]

Just not possible for the next 5 or so years, cuts out too much of your user base because of bandwidth caps and game sizes.
I suspect the turning point in the decision came when main stream media started to pick up the story, I'm not sure that would have happened 8 years ago. And the relative preorders that they were seeing at retail in the US.

That is a good point, out of curiosity what size do you think the average game will end up being on PS4/XB1?

 

[Cranky]

From the end user's perspective:

1. Forced checkings every 24 hours or loss of all gaming ability
2. Restrictions on how you could sell / lend your game disks
3. Restrictions on who could count as a "friend" for gifting/transfer purchases
4. Restrictions on WHO you could sell your used games too.
5. No guarentee that third party studios would allow resale, transfer, or trade
6. Built in ability of third party studios to restrict transfer, set up transfer fees, and prohibit resale.

Sigh.

1. not relevant with regard to target market. All target consumers have this capability.
2, 3, 4, and 5. In the digital age, transfer of IP violates the fundament principles of IP protection.

 

[2real4tv]

Lower income people shouldn't be buying either console at launch. For people bitching about the added cost of kinect neglect one thing that gets lost all of the in the narrative is it's added economic value.

For example, one step voice control of media consumption alone offsets the entire 500 dollar cost of the consol in 3 months for me. How does it do that? I spend at least 10 minutes a week looking for a remote. I value my time at a minimum of $250/hr, so that "costs" me $40/week in opportunity cost. In 12 weeks that is $480 in time costs "saved" just by avoiding time wasted looking for the remote. For people that value their time less, the payoff period is obviously longer. But if you limit it the $100 or increment costs for kinect it doesn't take long for the feature to payoff for anyone the places a reasonable value on their time.

You know your alienating college kids right? Also terrible spin, $250/hr to look for remote, how about pay me half of that and I will do it for you and fetch your drinks also Sarcasm?

 

[temesgen]

Sigh.

1. not relevant with regard to target market. All target consumers have this capability.
2, 3, 4, and 5. In the digital age, transfer of IP violates the fundament principles of IP protection.

So the media, the public are all just too stupid to get it? I think its more than a bit condescending to presume that consumers don't know what is in their own best interest.

 

[ERP]

That is a good point, out of curiosity what size do you think the average game will end up being on PS4/XB1?

If I had to guess, I suspect most AAA titles will fill a Bluray, so 50GB on disk, downloads can be somewhat smaller because they don't require all of the localizations and associated assets.
1st party XB1 games might be smaller, just because a lot of their existing process will be aimed at DVD and it's such a big step up.
but you'll probably have to download between 15 and 50GB to play most games.

 

[2real4tv]

If I had to guess, I suspect most AAA titles will fill a Bluray, so 50GB on disk, downloads can be somewhat smaller because they don't require all of the localizations and associated assets.
1st party XB1 games might be smaller, just because a lot of their existing process will be aimed at DVD and it's such a big step up.
but you'll probably have to download between 15 and 50GB to play most games.

Doesn't the size somewhat prevent privacy? Why hasn't the privacy scene taken off for ps3?

 

[wco81]

So we're going to have status quo on used games, a situation which was causing problems for the industry.

There have been many expressions about the "poor developers" who don't get any of the money exchanged in used games transactions. Sympathy for developers makes sense, since they are creating or developing the games.

But I question how much of the money would have went to developers. Let's say there was a scheme to extract some of the proceeds from used games sales back to the publishers (and probably MS as well?).

If EA finds a way to get a percentage of each used game transaction, will they give a significant portion to developers? Or will they simply do whatever the shareholders want with the additional revenues, which is either to pay more dividends or pay bonuses to executives. If a sale of a used NHL 15 netted EA $10, how much of that would have gone to the grunts in Vancouver, as opposed to the executives at EA headquarters down in California? Of course, MS probably would have got a cut of that transaction, probably bigger than anything the grunts would be getting.

So would Microsoft's system have increased compensation to developers? Or at least improve their job security?

In the two years that EA had online passes for used games, did they not lay off development staff?

 

[ERP]

So the media, the public are all just too stupid to get it? I think its more than a bit condescending to presume that consumers don't know what is in their own best interest.

The media are just looking for the best story positive or negative and "Danger Will Robinson" sells better than the positive spin.
I think MS messaging was confusing, but if you look at it purely analytically, there were some compelling features, online lending/gifting, play your library anywhere that the game is installed and you log in. I thought it was pretty well thought out.
Giving publishers control over used games, was perhaps a mistake, any single policy would have been better because at least people would have understood any limitations.
I think it would have led to changes in game pricing, given publishers opportunities to experiment with pricing, something they really can't do in a retail centric world.
And I think most people who actually used it would find the convenience factor a significant win. But now we will never know.

 

[warb]

So the media, the public are all just too stupid to get it? I think its more than a bit condescending to presume that consumers don't know what is in their own best interest.

Maybe it was too soon for too many, but having to sign in to XBL (free) in order to play Xbox games, on an Xbox, doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. There was the 24h offline period for spotty connections, but people who download games will have ways of staying connected. More and more people are downloading games, and for now these are as limited as they were on PS3/360.

 

[Xalion]

Sigh.

1. not relevant with regard to target market. All target consumers have this capability.

Seriously - tell this to the families of U.S. Navy individuals who like their consoles. Or perhaps markets in countries like Brazil where internet is not always readily available. Even in the US, there is a significant market where internet is not always available - for instance some college dorms don't offer internet because there are on campus labs.

Actually, let us be more precise. In North America - the country with the single largest penetration of internet users - the penetration rate for 2012 Q2 was 78.6%. It drops from there. In Asia, the percentage is 27.5%. The world average is 34.3%.

Those are significant numbers for a system that requires 100% of users to have an internet connection 100% of the time.

But none of those people matter - because they aren't you right?

2, 3, 4, and 5. In the digital age, transfer of IP violates the fundament principles of IP protection.

I could launch into an exhaustive explanation of IP and how you are wrong on each count, but instead I think I can make this much simpler: you are entitled to your opinion but the courts (and judgeing by recent events a large portion of the population) don't agree with you.

 

[ERP]

In the two years that EA had online passes for used games, did they not lay off development staff?

This is a little off topic, but there are two reasons EA does layoffs, annually as do many companies. And I'm not saying I agree with this.

The first is the obvious you ave 300 people who just finished a project you need 50 to staff project B and 20 to start project C and you have no where to put the other 230 people, but that's only part of the reason.

It is extremely hard to fire people in the US, even in "at will" States, while theoretically you can fire anyone anytime in practice if you do you'll be dealing with an expensive lawsuit, even more so if the person involved is any sort of minority. If you lay people off regularly, you can lay off under performers at that time, and they have no real recourse because you've demonstrated a pattern of behavior, and unless you're doing something stupid like only laying off people over 40 it's not an issue.

 

[joker454]

I've actually cancelled my XBOX One pre-order; needing discs and sharing elimination were enough to get me to bail out.

My wife had pre-ordered one, but she's been seeing the news and is totally confused now, she's asking me if we can still share games with her immediate family, niece, nephew, etc. I told her the only way now is to send discs in the mail around the country to share stuff. I had to explain to her how casuals like her are used to always being online whereas the "hardcore" gamer isn't, heck many of them don't even have reliable internet so sometimes companies have to cater to the low common denominator called the "hardcore" gamer and remove features. I don't know if she will cancel her pre-order or not yet but for her and typical casuals they are too forward thinking for consoles, I think she's better off just cancelling it and sticking to other more modern devices.

Just lend them your disc the good old way. People often lend games out they're not currently playing.

Family lives around the country, this isn't feasible. Nor should it be necessary in 2013 but I get it, "hardcore" gamers don't have reliable internet so they presume everyone else is in the same limited boat.

The cost of getting a reasonable gaming PC is going to drop. In two or three years, if I didn't have an Xbox One or PS4 already, why would I buy one instead of getting a new PC with whatever comes after Intel's Haswell, or a tablet, Apple TV or whatever? Apple, Valve and some of the indies are going to make a killing. Microsoft, Sony and the traditional console market is going to face tough times.

I guess it depends who they are trying to sell the consoles to. It looked like Microsoft was going wide this gen trying to attract the more forward looking and tech savvy casuals but after neutering the xb1 they seem more stuck with the low common denominator "hardcore" gamer and their typical limited buying patterns. It will be tough for them to expand their market at the ravaging rate that devices catered to more progressive and forward thinking casuals are. I guess there's still Kinect stuff though, for now that's still standard so some cool new stuff can come there. Cloud could have been really cool but I have to wonder if not requiring internet means many publishers will cancel plans to use it for new ideas and instead just use it for dedicated servers. It's sad, they were onto something new here but now it may end up being just another boring console. Maybe cloud can live on in tablets and pc's, those customers tend to have internet so maybe they can leverage that tech there.

I've left PC gaming during the PSone days and never looked back.

Yeah same with me for consoles, the console 64 color limit just wasn't appealing so I never looked back and stuck with pc gaming. Yes my comment sounds about as silly as yours. Seriously, the ps1 days? You do realize how far things have come since then in the pc world. Goodness are other people avoiding pc gaming because of how it used to run on their 286? I realize that "hardcore" console gamers are limited at the rate they accept new tech and, heck many of them don't even have reliable internet. But maybe y'all want to peek at the pc side again. You connect hdmi cable from pc to tv, sit on couch with 360 controller and play with modern graphics, framerates and features. It's changed since the 90's, you may want to take a look. Then again to make the most of pc requires internet, so that probably does rule out most "hardcore" gamers.

 

[wco81]

Right but bottom line, if the publishers and console makers are able to get used games proceeds instead of game stop, would it have improved job security and compensation?

My suspicion is that it would have been executives at the publishers who would have gotten the lion's share of such proceeds.

 

[warb]

If these consoles didn't require electricity, I'm sure a lot of people without consistent power would love one. But I guess those people don't matter.



It was too soon for the mouthy and definitely not all good, but I do hope there's a way of implementing some of those cool features on the platform at some point.

 

[Billy Idol]

My wife had pre-ordered one, but she's been seeing the news and is totally confused now, she's asking me if we can still share games with her immediate family, niece, nephew, etc. I told her the only way now is to send discs in the mail around the country to share stuff. I had to explain to her how casuals like her are used to always being online whereas the "hardcore" gamer isn't, heck many of them don't even have reliable internet so sometimes companies have to cater to the low common denominator called the "hardcore" gamer and remove features. I don't know if she will cancel her pre-order or not yet but for her and typical casuals they are too forward thinking for consoles, I think she's better off just cancelling it and sticking to other more modern devices.

Family lives around the country, this isn't feasible. Nor should it be necessary in 2013 but I get it, "hardcore" gamers don't have reliable internet so they presume everyone else is in the same limited boat.

I guess it depends who they are trying to sell the consoles to. It looked like Microsoft was going wide this gen trying to attract the more forward looking and tech savvy casuals but after neutering the xb1 they seem more stuck with the low common denominator "hardcore" gamer and their typical limited buying patterns. It will be tough for them to expand their market at the ravaging rate that devices catered to more progressive and forward thinking casuals are. I guess there's still Kinect stuff though, for now that's still standard so some cool new stuff can come there. Cloud could have been really cool but I have to wonder if not requiring internet means many publishers will cancel plans to use it for new ideas and instead just use it for dedicated servers. It's sad, they were onto something new here but now it may end up being just another boring console.

Yeah same with me for consoles, the console 64 color limit just wasn't appealing so I never looked back and stuck with pc gaming. Yes my comment sounds about as silly as yours. Seriously, the ps1 days? You do realize how far things have come since then in the pc world. Goodness are other people avoiding pc gaming because of how it used to run on their 286? I realize that "hardcore" console gamers are limited at the rate they accept new tech and, heck many of them don't even have reliable internet. But maybe y'all want to peek at the pc side again. You connect hdmi cable from pc to tv, sit on couch with 360 controller and play with modern graphics, framerates and features. It's changed since the 90's, you may want to take a look. Then again to make the most of pc requires internet, so that probably does rule out most "hardcore" gamers.

Joker, do you exactly know how the sharing system is supposed to work? Do you have insider information, or is all an assumption of yours?

What if it was not intended the way you think it is?

 

[Xalion]

If these consoles didn't require electricity, I'm sure a lot of people without consistent power would love one. But I guess those people don't matter.

This is not only a red herring - but an silly argument at best.

I never said that Microsoft was obliged to sell their console to everyone regardless of living conditions. I said that their decision to force an online connection was draconian. Someone countered by saying that "their intended audience is always online anyway."

I merely provided you with numbers showing that such a move actually alienates a large portion of their current base and weakens their possible business model world wide. Basically, you want to tell a portion of their current base that they don't matter. Your justification for this? That Microsoft doesn't currently sell consoles to people without power? Is that really the argument you want to make?

 

[warb]

^ My assumption is that almost all of those who buy the new ~£400 systems with their extensive online services, will be connected. There are a lot of sucessful products and services that require an internet connection.



It was said that upto 10 people on your family list could access your shared library. Only one person could play the shared copy of any particular game at any time, but you'd still have access to all of your games.

Maybe games you put in a shared library could require the online check to play? Otherwise they're in offline mode.

 

[Billy Idol]

It was said that upto 10 people on your family list could access your shared library. Only one person could play the shared copy of any particular game at any time, but you'd still have access to all of your games.

Maybe games you put in a shared library could require the online check to play? Otherwise they're in offline mode.

Can you play the shared game for an arbitrary amount of time? Can another one play a game in the shared library simultaneously?