Console Failures and Successes *spawn*

[Shifty Geezer]

The thread was spawned off the sales conversation (the secret's in the title). There was a couple of pages of discussion about XB1 as a failure/success (up to this post). The thread was spawned off as "XBox One is a success/failure - Discuss. *spawn". Discussion became more generalised as people presented different measures including other consoles, so the thread was renamed to "Console failures and successes".

What do you expect to gain from having a thread just saying XB1 sold worse than 360? How much discussion is there in such an obvious fact? Are you hoping for pages and pages of people saying what a failure XB1 is? Here you go...

"XB1 sold less than 360 and has less exclusives. I call that a failure"
"Yep."
"Sure has."
"Lots less."
"Definitely a failure."
"Yep, big flop from MS."
"360 was great. XB1 is a sales turd."

Happy now?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

They could make $1 for all you know.

Sure and promptly get sued by their stockholders as well as the SEC and potentially get kicked off the Stock Exchange.

1 USD does not equate to it being a prime driver in the growth of the division and growth of margins in officially released Stockholder material or SEC filings.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sure and promptly get sued by their stockholders as well as the SEC and potentially get kicked off the Stock Exchange.

Why? Microsoft provide financial reporting and there is nothing requiring they report specific product lines or businesses on their own - Apple sure don't but Sony sure do. Xbox operations have always been part of a wider division and they report the financials of that whole division. This is why there has always been rampant speculation regards Xbox's profitability.

As others have said, success of failure depends on your goals and these aren't known so I don't see a bright insightful future for this thread

 

[Entropy]

Actually, we do have some idea regarding Microsofts expectations and goals. Again:

Every generation, as you’ve probably heard, has grown approximately 30%. So this generation is about 300 million units. Most industry experts think the next generation will get upwards of about 400 million units. That’s if it’s a game console, over the next decade...We think you can go broader than a game console, that’s our aim, and you can go from 400 million to potentially upwards of a billion units. That’s how we’re thinking of the Xbox opportunity as we go forward.

Talking about stationary consoles here, mind you.
Also, in the greater quote, it is made clear that Microsoft intended to compete for a majority share of those consoles. They had a strategy to achieve it too, with TV oriented features and deals.

Of course, Microsoft isn't going to talk about a current product being a failure. They didn't do that about the Zune either. They aren't idiots.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's safe to say XB1 hasn't reached the numbers MS were hoping for. Any venture like this would have been hoping to increase in userbase. There are easily other goals that could have been in place from the start, though. Things like, "increase lifetime revenue per unit by 25%" and "increase XBox Store adoption to transition towards a Windows rather than Xbox future." The original vision of a TV box was flop, as we all knew when it was announced, which is where that billion number was coming from. "More people watch TV than play games. If we can create a box that serves them, but plays games, we'll tap a new market." MS totally screwed up on the execution to have any chance of achieving that goal though! You need to be able to sell outside the US to get a billion units sold.

As for never hearing from MS, we'll no doubt get insider commentary on the decision making and failures. eg.
Former Microsoft Zune Boss Explains Why It Flopped

 

[Entropy]

The reason why it can be meaningful to not paint the XBoxOne in too bright a light is for predictive purposes rather than fighting a console war.
Microsofts original reason for the XBoxen was to fight for the living room. That fight has been lost. To mobile media consumption more than anything, but also Rokus, AppleTVs, the TVs gaining intelligence of their own.... It's over, Microsoft can never be more than a small niche player on the back of the XBox. Also, their phone gambit has been a disaster and is being put to rest. That means that a portable console, going up against iOS/Android and the Nintendo Switch has no phone strategy to help prop it up.

So where do they go from here?

Microsoft used to encourage PC developers/publishers to start supporting the XBox, and did XBox exclusive games themselves. It's doubtful that ever made sense, since a PC gamer moving to console has always had a less than one in three chance of ending up on a Microsoft console (and robbing the PC of content made it less appealing in the home). In the future, XBox global market share vs. the PS4 and Switch looks even worse.
The battle for the living room is lost for consoles, there is no supporting mobile strategy, overall console hardware market is shrinking and Microsofts share within that niche is dropping making customers convinced to buy into consoles even less likely to not support a competitor and potentially being a lost PC user.

I know what I would do if I were Microsoft, which would be dropping the XBox, shore up the PC for private use, and look for markets which have strong potential for growth and where Microsoft can leverage their deep pockets and software pedigree to gain market dominance. Looking at Microsofts console situation with rose tinted glasses makes that scenario invisible.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You can't single MS out for that though. It's not a failure of XB1 to win the living room, but consoles. PS4 is no more the media hub of the living room than any other machine. As for what MS (and the others) should do next, there are threads discussing their futures.

Long term console company strategies
What MS, Sony, Nintendo should be or are doing next.

This thread is for discussing the things consoles did and didn't get right.

MS's future discussion moved here.

 

[Recop]

Some goals are more important than others... it's obvious... and the XB1 failed on its main goals.

Even if the we consider that the XB1 is more profitable, it's only because the buisness model is now more mature in the console industry. This has nothing to do with MS choices in particular....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You've made that point multiple times now. If you've nothing new to add, why post again?

 

[Recop]

You've made that point multiple times now. If you've nothing new to add, why post again?

You're not wrong but there is a small subtility : we don't have to look at each goal to determine if a console is a success or not.

We only have to look at the most important ones.

In other words, loosing that much market share is enough to consider the XB1 as a failure.

More rentability per consumer is expected as the industry matures. I won't call that a success...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You keep pushing for people to agree with you. It's not going to happen. Other POV show that money is more important to a business than number of users. Most don't agree it's as black and white as you feel. Okay to differ, but kinda boring to keep repeating the same POV when it's not going to change anything.

 

[Recop]

Other POV show that money is more important to a business than number of users.

This sentence doesn't mean anything outside of a context :

I have 100 customers with a rentability of 10 dollars by customer.

Next year i only have 10 customers with a rentability of 110 dollars by customer.

I earned more money this year but i could have won 10 times more...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

We all understand your POV. We trust you understand the other POV, but maybe you don't. There's no point repeating either at this point - agree to disagree and drop it. It's illogical to continue making the same point again and again, and again, even after being told it's good to just let it go.