Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[2real4tv]

Were you incapable of reading the whole post? I clearly state that others would value their time differently but the concept would still apply. Time has value. That value varies from person to person. For me, it is $250/hr. So, I just consumed $12.5 replying to you. Really should have included much flaming and gnashing of the teeth to get proper value though.

How is that alienating college kids? Either they have suffient money to pay expenses and buy the console (either on their own or via their parents) or they choose to trade-off eating eating ramen to buy a console. The latter folks are probably making a poor decison. That's ok, college kids do that all the time.

You know that 60mil+ consoles 360 sold lets chop that by 30%-40% going by your privileged audience.

Your entitled to your opinion and I respect it, but I am willing to bet the majority doesn't agree with you. Also your post isn't worth the $12.5 with spelling errors

 

[2real4tv]

Yeah I don't know why people keep bringing up ps3 sharing, it's not at all the same thing as what xb1 was going to be offering.




There's many answers to this but to keep it short, it's a way to target new audiences (and hence new revenue), a way to get an advantage over your competition (and hence bring in more customers), and a way to kill off used gaming all at the same time (a place where they make no revenue). Now what I'm curious about is who will copy what Microsoft was doing and beat them to market with it. We now know that Valve is contemplating it, how about Apple? If Apple did it then everyone would love their "new invention". I think that's what will have to happen, another less hated company will copy the idea and market it first, then Microsoft can come back years later and support it themselves. Anyone want to place bets as who will be the first out with family plan digital sharing?




See that's my point, speculation. What the company says on it's own website doesn't matter anymore, all that matters is speculation.

I agree on your point. Although seems excessive..I mean why ten?

 

[Billy Idol]

Joker, not sure if publishers will accept this rather vague arguments.maybe they didn't? This is the same argument as saying that used game sales allow people to invest this money again in new games, generating more revenue...so used games are good for game industry! So, what are the other arguments?

As for bringing down used games which you bring as a plus point...now you surprise me!! You posted often that MS future is a future where you could sell your digital content to others...used digital sales??? How is this bringing down used game sales?

 

[Cranky]

You know that 60mil+ consoles 360 sold lets chop that by 30%-40% going by your privileged audience.

Your entitled to your opinion and I respect it, but I am willing to bet the majority doesn't agree with you. Also your post isn't worth the $12.5 with spelling errors

A: it is too expensive to run spell check! LOL

Most likely MS would make far more money targeting those customers, especially if the MSP of the box approximates the COGS for the box throughout most of its lifetime.

To put it simply, MS would prefer to have only Live Gold customers. If serving that audience better reduces sales in others most likely that is a good financial tradeoff.

 

[warb]

Joker, not sure if publishers will accept this rather vague arguments.maybe they didn't? This is the same argument as saying that used game sales allow people to invest this money again in new games, generating more revenue...so used games are good for game industry! So, what are the other arguments?

As for bringing down used games which you bring as a plus point...now you surprise me!! You posted often that MS future is a future where you could sell your digital content to others...used digital sales??? How is this bringing down used game sales?

People who make and publish the games would perhaps get a slice of the used digital sales pie.

 

[Billy Idol]

People who make and publish the games would perhaps get a slice of the used digital sales pie.

This would cut down the money people would get from their used game sales and would encourage them to participate in an organized sharing group. Who cares for used digital game sales if they pay 6$ in average for an SP game?

Maybe the publisher cares...

 

[3dilettante]

A: it is too expensive to run spell check! LOL

Most likely MS would make far more money targeting those customers, especially if the MSP of the box approximates the COGS for the box throughout most of its lifetime.

To put it simply, MS would prefer to have only Live Gold customers. If serving that audience better reduces sales in others most likely that is a good financial tradeoff.

That doesn't work if a lot of them care about the people left behind.
A significant number of people care if their friends/family/heroes get dicked over.

 

[2real4tv]

A: it is too expensive to run spell check! LOL

Most likely MS would make far more money targeting those customers, especially if the MSP of the box approximates the COGS for the box throughout most of its lifetime.

To put it simply, MS would prefer to have only Live Gold customers. If serving that audience better reduces sales in others most likely that is a good financial tradeoff.

What???? I think Microsoft would prefer to have all gamer's. People financial status doesn't remain constant all the time...hell I can get laid off tomorrow and internet might be one of the things I cut back on to keep my houses.

 

[2real4tv]

People who make and publish the games would perhaps get a slice of the used digital sales pie.

Then start their own used game business? This isn't new again if I purchase a Nissan vehicle, Nissan doesn't continue to get money for each transaction after he initial, same for most physical items you purchase.

Privacy is a big issue that needs to be addressed though.

 

[Billy Idol]

Then start their own used game business?

i.e. organized sharing groups

 

[joker454]

I agree on your point. Although seems excessive..I mean why ten?

Well because it's a family plan so it has to be reasonably accommodating. It would allow typical families to be fully supported, and perhaps allow the kids to have one bff hooked up as well in some cases. Additionally you need some slack to allow for addition and removal of people from the family plan, which I think was 30 days. So if boyfriend and girlfriend break up and remove each other from their respective sharing plans, you don't want to have all of your family slots maxed out while you wait 30 days for that family slot to be free to use again.

Joker, not sure if publishers will accept this rather vague arguments.maybe they didn't?

The quick answer to that is they had to. There's no way Microsoft would have gone through with it if publishers were vehemently against it. They need the publishers on board to make the console work, otherwise the xb1 was dead in the water on day 1. The fact that it's there and the console is getting widespread publisher support all but guarantees that publishers were ok with it. The tighter drm on the xb1 probably was enough to make the publishers really happy anyways.

What I'm wondering now is are publishers pissed at Microsoft for taking out the drm. Presumably all this stuff was planned a long time ago and everyone came on board because of it, and made plans for it. Now publishers no longer have the drm they were promised, and no longer have the fully internet ready audience they were promised which may affect any cloud plans they had. There must be some internal fallout from this.

As for bringing down used games which you bring as a plus point...now you surprise me!! You posted often that MS future is a future where you could sell your digital content to others...used digital sales??? How is this bringing down used game sales?

Because they control it. They didn't talk about allowing sale of used games, just sharing, but if they did allow used game selling in the future then at least they could take a cut of it, compared to now where they get nothing. Also remember buying used games means walking into a Gamestop and seeing your competitors products on display. It's important for them to be the ones controlling used games if anything to eliminate that aspect of it. Microsoft doesn't want people seeing PS4 games on display and vice versa.

 

[warb]

This would cut down the money people would get from their used game sales and would encourage them to participate in an organized sharing group. Who cares for used digital game sales if they pay 6$ in average for an SP game?

Maybe the publisher cares...

You have to buy games to share games. Members of such a sharing group would want to contribute, and ultimately may not like waiting to try their own favourite games.

If the majority cared enough about waiting for the best deal, new release sales wouldn't always follow the usual pattern of falling off a cliff after the first week.

 

[Nisaaru]

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

They obviously can't. I also really don't get what stops them from allowing the same digital library concept for people which are online. There's much possible without the mandatory 24h check. But then my impression was that this digital library thing some people here got so attracted to was just an afterthought to make their DRM more acceptable after they got flak for it.

 

[2real4tv]

Did they ever mention if Live will carry over? Will it cost more?

I am ok with paying for Live since it will include features like dedis.

Just to be clear I only oppose the anti used games and 24hr check in policy.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Now what I'm curious about is who will copy what Microsoft was doing and beat them to market with it. We now know that Valve is contemplating it, how about Apple?

Let's not over egg the pudding here, Microsoft talked about the idea of game library sharing with very few specifics. E3 journalists were left with more questions and answers and nobody has reported seeing it demonstrated. The extent of how much it was actually developed is questionable.

That doesn't diminish it being a great idea of course, and while I can see this being a great selling point for a platform owner, if it really did work as rumoured (full games, not time-limited demos), it sounded a little too good to be true. Personally I think it would take somebody with far better communication skills than Microsoft have demonstrated recently to persuade publishers that the risk vs reward of lost sales vs potential sales, would pay off and be worth the risk.

 

[warb]

Did they ever mention if Live will carry over? Will it cost more?

I am ok with paying for Live since it will include features like dedis.

Just to be clear I only oppose the anti used games and 24hr check in policy.

Live carries over, so I'd guess it costs the same.

 

[Billy Idol]

But this is exactly my point joker. I also think that publisher were ok with the X1 family share, obviously, see E3.

But I am also 100% that publisher would not be d'accord with a sharing system you imply, because of the reasons I state earlier...6$ a game!

So the only logical conclusion is that the family share does not work they way you think it would have.

Note that MS never exactly detailed their plan. Note, that what you quoted, the official statement, is extremely imprecise. Note that there are several other possibilities which makes more sense for publishers without contradicting the official statements.

E.g. family shared games can be played for a certain amount of time only, aka a timed demo. This would make perfect sense: people can test out a game in your library for a substantial time and get motivated to buy it.

But this is miles away from the functionality you suppose.

In conclusion, I do not think that it works the way you think it does.

 

[joker454]

Let's not over egg the pudding here, Microsoft talked about the idea of game library sharing with very few specifics. E3 journalists were left with more questions and answers and nobody has reported seeing it demonstrated. The extent of how much it was actually developed is questionable.

That doesn't diminish it being a great idea of course, and while I can see this being a great selling point for a platform owner, if it really did work as rumoured (full games, not time-limited demos), it sounded a little too good to be true. Personally I think it would take somebody with far better communication skills than Microsoft have demonstrated recently to persuade publishers that the risk vs reward of lost sales vs potential sales, would pay off and be worth the risk.

Again, this is what Microsoft said right on their own website:

Give your family access to your entire games library anytime, anywhere: Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games. You can always play your games, and any one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

I must be in the twilight zone because I simply don't understand how they could have made it any more clear, the above paragraph says it all. If people want to infer that maybe it means that Microsoft will stab them anytime they try sharing a game then that's their own self imposed limitation. The feature is all there in text on their own website. Or was there, now of course it's gone.

 

[Billy Idol]

Again, this is what Microsoft said right on their own website:

I must be in the twilight zone because I simply don't understand how they could have made it any more clear, the above paragraph says it all. If people want to infer that maybe it means that Microsoft will stab them anytime they try sharing a game then that's their own self imposed limitation. The feature is all there in text on their own website. Or was there, now of course it's gone.

It never states for how long you can play the shared game. Does the shared game has all the functionality?

See, this statement is only have of the needed information...right?

 

[warb]

I think it probably did work as described, and they might've have sold more games for it (the sharing feature).

People will invest in a system they're communicating and sharing with family/friends on.