Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[Nesh]

The target wasnt general consumers who werent tuning in. They were targeting the press whose audience are general tech consumers. It should be obvious given who got initimate access to the hardware including engadget and wired.

You mean those tuning in were just those who attended in person?
Not make it a private or closed event then while they were at it? But it wasnt private. It was LIVE and public. For a reason. The conference wasnt targeting just those who attended ofcourse
Those who attended (not counting the micfosoft staged audience) are the middle men of information between corporation and the general consumer.
Its the same thing

MS is targeting a broader market including gamers and the TV guy. If you marketing a product to a market segment that isnt intimate with your product, where do you put your initial focus. On the gamers who have their own major conference coming up or trying to expose your product to a segment that will require more effort to become acquainted with your product.

We got it that they are trying to broaden the market and we know there will be another conference focusing on games. But it doesnt work that simple. You dont make a product and decide "hey lets target two different audiences simultaneously that may not relate to each other" and expect it to work just like that. Its an issue that is possibly highlighted by the fact that they needed to make two separate conferences focusing on completely different areas as if its a double personality product or two different products stuck in one box. This is not the point of an ALL IN ONE device.
Why would the TV guy skip alternative and more convenient solutions (existing or incoming) in areas that matter more just to pay premium for technology that costs as much as it does due to having gaming related hardware when he doesnt care about gaming?

There is also this myth going on that a gamer cant be a general consumer or a tech guy. I am a gamer and would like an all in one console. This isnt an all in one console as they make it sound to be.
It probably could have been closer in being one if I could simply stick my antenna or stream TV from my internet the channels I care about and have access to. Not this cable subscription, IR, extra devices crap needed to do it

Europe always plays second fiddle in the console market. Its not a home market, its segmented and requires a lot more effort to accommodate. Did Sony not care about Europe when it delayed its Europe launch to accommodate the US and Japan for the PS3. If Sony's first reveal would of been Japan centric with emphasis on features and games that it thought would excite the japanese would that be proof Sony doesnt care about Europe or the US? The US is the largest contiguous market that happens to strongly support the xbox brand. It also has a large tv entertainment market that dwarfs the us gaming market. The US represents a perfect opportunity for MS to target a broad audience with an strong appetite for tv entertainment that logistically is easier to serve.

You are comparing two different things. You are comparing a delay of a product that functions uniformly to a product that highlights a feature that is either of limited use or cannot be used to a large portion of the global market.
Regardless of caring for the EU resident (like me) as much as the US TV guy, they are doing a bad job in that respect.
If MS wants to target mainly the TV guy in the US because the US TV market is an opportunity is the equivalent of admitting my previous point.
And even if I was a US TV guy their solution is not one I like unless I was the TV guy who simply gets excited by impressionistic telemarketing PR.

And lets not pretend they didnt show stuff related directly to my gaming experience like the intrusive mandatory camera, internet connection and possible additional fees.

I wasnt happy and it wasnt just because they didnt show games

 

[upnorthsox]

Has anyone that is getting both systems wondered how it would work to have the PS4 plugged into the XBOne in place of a cable box. So in theory you CAN play both PS4 and XBOne games on the same system.

Now you can have the best of both worlds all in One box lol.

So then you'd say "XBox, Play games" and it would turn on the PS4........

 

[Squilliam]

So then you'd say "XBox, Play games" and it would turn on the PS4........

That'd be a brilliant viral video!

 

[DJ12]

I think after siri telling its users that the lumia was the best smart phone ms will have put something in place to never bring up ps4 anywhere in the system.

I imagine if you search for ps4 in bing it will say did you mean xbox and display only those results.

 

[Rangers]

Yeah, I wanted to show my sister a summary of the launch and the TV features and thought that video would be one. Not so!

It's quite accurate though lol.

Richard Leadbetter was telling me how he thought the MS announcement would not go down well with the core, and it certainly hasn't.
90% of GAF seems to have a low opinion of it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=560500

yet i'll still be kinda surprised if it doesn't outsell the ps4 initially.

kinect and tv are going to woo a lot of average consumers.

and for all the dislike it's totally dominating the conversation too. I'd probably be more worried if it's just kind of irrelevant, like wii u.

i still have big concerns about the power in the longer term, but we still have lots to learn on that front

-did they do any overclock? (unlikely)
-Can ESRAM make up some/all of the paper GPU difference? (E3 will tell a lot here, but for a full picture will require years)
-Is diminishing returns enough of a thing that the games really dont look very different even if the gap holds up? (E3 tells more but not all, again)
-This cloud stuff, super vague, but in theory could play a spoiler role here
- Various OS reserves, pretty even between the players? (likely)

it's also going to be interesting about initial price for both platforms. that's a big piece of the puzzle.

i'm betting both are going to be super supply constrained initially anyway. i'm thinking it could be really bad. ms may have a tough to fab soc cause of the esram, and sony may have tough to supply ram chips.

 

[upnorthsox]

When will Sony reveal the entertainment aspects of ps4 ? - at e3 or gamescom ?
They will have everything Microsoft has with Xbox one without the live tv IMO.

I would have guessed Sony would discuss their non-gaming stuff at E3, now though they may be better off with a full court press on games and pick at the open wound self inflicted by MS.

Actually, what they really need to do is a reintroduction of PS+ which is their best value proposition. That, a data dump from their studios, a key partnership or exclusive, the box reveal, and a sneak peak of the OS (with a we'll talk more about at tgs) and you have a solid show.

MS road is much tougher. Not only do they have to go Games, games, games but they also have several issues they need to walk back. Unless their internal studios are ready to carry the day, its going to be hard to get other publishers to come out and do reveals as they have their own shows for reveals. My feeling is that this may to devolve to the "Mia Kinect" show which may actually be a mixed blessing.

 

[DJ12]

I think both boxes will be playable/usable at e3 to be honest.

Xbox basically looked done as a hardwire device and it was supposedly behind ps4 in production.

 

[upnorthsox]

That'd be a brilliant viral video!

Indeed, a hilarious series could be a guy who's Xbone is a PSfanboi.......

 

[wco81]

They seem to be dominating the discussion even though much of that discussion is negative or questionable. I guess the question is whether 'there's no such thing as bad publicity' is true.

I do wonder what the average age of gamers are these days. If you were 30 when this generation started you'd be 38 by now and you likely have kids between the ages of 3-15 given the latter age for having children. Perhaps the priorities of the target market have changed and the Microsoft console is simply reflecting a changing purchase demographic?

One thing I have noted time and again is that catering to the wider market always annoys the hardcore. Things which hardcore gamers don't even notice (or even enjoy) such as flaming, bad match-ups, slow lobbies and difficult controls seem to really put off the average gamer. The hardcore gamers are such a small group going by traffic on forums vs physical sales that they can be safely ignored as Nintendo showed with the Wii.

Well they've been dealing with the gamers demographic growing up for about a decade now.

I think the difference is that mobile devices draw a lot of the discretionary spending people do on electronics toys.

I haven't touched my PS3 in over a year now. Instead, I play these little asynchronous multiplayer games, which provide enough diversion from work and other daily chores.

But do the non-gaming features MS showed appeal to me? Not really, because I'm thinking of building an HTPC or getting some other DVR. Plus, my guess is you will have to pay to be able to tell Xbone to change my channels. Sorry pay enough for my TV bill, not going to cut in Microsoft on it.

With the PS4, if they pull the same stupid used game fee extraction or pay for online play, I won't bother with it either.

They need to make their business model more attractive to consumers, especially in this day and age when mobile devices offer a lot, without onerous usage policies. That is why I'm likely to buy new smart phones and iPads every couple of years.

Console companies have to really provide good value to get $500 plus $60 games these days. Slap on more fees to actually use the device and make it difficult to recoup the money on games and the value proposition plummets.

 

[blakjedi]

Well they've been dealing with the gamers demographic growing up for about a decade now.

I think the difference is that mobile devices draw a lot of the discretionary spending people do on electronics toys.

I haven't touched my PS3 in over a year now. Instead, I play these little asynchronous multiplayer games, which provide enough diversion from work and other daily chores.

But do the non-gaming features MS showed appeal to me? Not really, because I'm thinking of building an HTPC or getting some other DVR. Plus, my guess is you will have to pay to be able to tell Xbone to change my channels. Sorry pay enough for my TV bill, not going to cut in Microsoft on it.

With the PS4, if they pull the same stupid used game fee extraction or pay for online play, I won't bother with it either.

They need to make their business model more attractive to consumers, especially in this day and age when mobile devices offer a lot, without onerous usage policies. That is why I'm likely to buy new smart phones and iPads every couple of years.

Console companies have to really provide good value to get $500 plus $60 games these days. Slap on more fees to actually use the device and make it difficult to recoup the money on games and the value proposition plummets.

I think when it comes down to it... you will choose something like an xbox one over futzing around with htpc at this point. Xb1 will probably stream from your PC also...

 

[Charybdis]

Indeed, a hilarious series could be a guy who's Xbone is a PSfanboi.......

See now you guys are getting it MS said hey if we can get a system to play both our games and the games of our competitors then we will rule the world lol... But seriously in place of a cable STB just plug a PS4 or 360 and bang you got your backwards compatibility back.

I posted a link about ars-technica explaining the way that the cloud will help out with graphics as far as lighting and cloth effects were concerned. I would love to know from everyone if it will work.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/05/how-the-xbox-one-draws-more-processing-power-from-cloud-computing/

 

[wco81]

Xbone wont necessarily record programs.

And I want HTPC to avoid paying monthly fees, like the stupid Tivo fee.

No way I'm going to pay XBL fees to control my TV.

 

[JB9861]

I don't get it how TV is going to be the big thing... isn't it streaming that will take over the world? Roku, appletv, ps3 and whatnot already covers that on very reasonable to ridiculously low price point without any extra monthly payments.

edit. And don't get me started on voice recognition. It doesn't work on my accent(english) or my native language. I would much rather press a button on remote than try saying silly things 3+ times to watch syfy channel

Roku and apple TV aren't the most popular devices for streaming and they do not have a large install base compared to gaming consoles even at a cheap entry price.

 

[Nisaaru]

Xbone wont necessarily record programs.

And I want HTPC to avoid paying monthly fees, like the stupid Tivo fee.

No way I'm going to pay XBL fees to control my TV.

Somebody has to finance Azure for MS

 

[Squilliam]

Well they've been dealing with the gamers demographic growing up for about a decade now.

I think the difference is that mobile devices draw a lot of the discretionary spending people do on electronics toys.

People are used to subscriptions though, so if they can get the cost down to say $200 + $15 a month like before they could do well with it.

But do the non-gaming features MS showed appeal to me? Not really, because I'm thinking of building an HTPC or getting some other DVR. Plus, my guess is you will have to pay to be able to tell Xbone to change my channels. Sorry pay enough for my TV bill, not going to cut in Microsoft on it.

I have an HTPC and it is nowhere near convenient. I still have a stupid problem where the sound goes out over HDMI when I switch inputs.

With the PS4, if they pull the same stupid used game fee extraction or pay for online play, I won't bother with it either.

It does look likely that they will. I don't think Microsoft is brave enough to be doing it on their own.

They need to make their business model more attractive to consumers, especially in this day and age when mobile devices offer a lot, without onerous usage policies. That is why I'm likely to buy new smart phones and iPads every couple of years.

Console companies have to really provide good value to get $500 plus $60 games these days. Slap on more fees to actually use the device and make it difficult to recoup the money on games and the value proposition plummets.

I don't think they can get away with charging $499. The usage policies are really no different to the iPad. You have the same walled garden so why is it acceptable from an iPad but not from a console?

 

[Brad Grenz]

Roku and apple TV aren't the most popular devices for streaming and they do not have a large install base compared to gaming consoles even at a cheap entry price.

Yeah, because so many people bought consoles to play games and streaming apps ended up being a great fringe benefit.

 

[wco81]

Well they've been dealing with the gamers demographic growing up for about a decade now.

I think the difference is that mobile devices draw a lot of the discretionary spending people do on electronics toys.

People are used to subscriptions though, so if they can get the cost down to say $200 + $15 a month like before they could do well with it.



I have an HTPC and it is nowhere near convenient. I still have a stupid problem where the sound goes out over HDMI when I switch inputs.



It does look likely that they will. I don't think Microsoft is brave enough to be doing it on their own.



I don't think they can get away with charging $499. The usage policies are really no different to the iPad. You have the same walled garden so why is it acceptable from an iPad but not from a console?

There are no usage fees for iPad. I use the same Internet connection that I use for my computers, consoles and yes, mobile devices.

There's no analog to the XBL subscription, or whatever they may call the fee to have Kinect change your TV channels for you.

You can't re-sell iOS games or apps. But you can install them on any device, not locked to a given device.

And the games and apps. are not $60 so you don't care as much that you can't re-sell them to recoup your costs, finance more software purchases.

No, paying to use second-hand games or play online or use other features of the hardware that you paid $400-500 for and $60 for the software is an order of magnitude more onerous than what you encounter on mobile devices.

Oh and it may be a walled-garden but there's way more breadth of content available than for the console ecosystems. Now the games aren't as pretty or as deep (in general) but you have to assess the value proposition.

 

[dobwal]

What MS is doing isn't new as Sony used the PS3, PSP and PS2 with the intention of pushing optical drives into mainstream acceptance.

Sony never received anywhere near this much flak for it's design decision with the PS3. Gamers weren't the primary motivation for the inclusion of BluRay. And it's inclusion negatively impacted gamers more than it provided a positive impact on gamers. Production issues with the diodes delayed the overall launch, it contributed significantly to the BOM of the early consoles and it's anemic transfer speed lead to partial download requirements on more than a few titles.

Yes, the XB1's TV intergration is a US centric feature. But what was MS to do? Label the presentation as a US only reveal?

I'm sorry but the console gaming market doesn't serve one big monolithic userbase. And regardless of how influential you think we are as hardcore or core gamers, the reality remains that COD is the biggest and most valuable console franchise around and EA and Activision are two of the biggest and most successful pubs in gaming. We aren't talking about the most beloved franchise or pubs on here or Gaf. And the PS is probably the most loved brand amongst hardcore and core users. Sony was able to parlay that into just a 30% market share.

I can see why some wanted CUs, GDDR5 and a game centric philosophy over eSRAM and TV intergration. But that's exactly what the PS4 gives you. There is no BC and the PS4's online service won't necessarily have the same distinct disadvantages the PS3 has against the 360. No barriers exist that makes transition from a 360 to a PS4 anymore difficult than transitioning from a 360 to an XB1. There is literally no reason why the xb1 should basically be a clone of the PS4 in hardware, service or philosophy.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

There is no BC and the PS4's online service won't necessarily have the same distinct disadvantages the PS3 has against the 360. No barriers exist that makes transition from a 360 to a PS4 anymore difficult than transitioning from a 360 to an XB1. There is literally no reason why the xb1 should be basically a clone of the PS4 in hardware, service or philosophy.

I agree with your overall summation, but while PSN might not have the same distinct disadvantages it has against Live, I'm fairly certain it will have an all new set of distinct disadvantages.

I also firmly believe you're going to pay for the online services that Sony announced at their PS4 reveal. Your not going to get 360-Live Gold like features for free from PSN on the PS4. And you're likely not to get One-Live Gold features, period.

 

[dobwal]

I agree with your overall summation, but while PSN might not have the same distinct disadvantages it has against Live, I'm fairly certain it will have an all new set of distinct disadvantages.

I also firmly believe you're going to pay for the online services that Sony announced at their PS4 reveal. Your not going to get 360-Live Gold like features for free from PSN on the PS4. And you're likely not to get One-Live Gold features, period.

No maybe not XB1 version Live but the main features on 360's Live that the PS3 lacked due to technical constraints won't be a problem on the PS4. The likelihood is strong that the PS4 online experience will be very much in line at the very least, with what we received last gen especially considering Plus.

You're were paying for Live so how does PSN Plus act as a barrier, if it provides the same services you are use to paying for? In all likelihood the PS4 with a Plus subscription will be superior in at least a few areas.