mckmas8808
Legend
Who actually thinks that Sony was surprised at what MS has done with the 360?
DFC Report: Too close to call
- Thread starter g35er
- Start date
I bet they are surprised at the amount of developer support MS has gained.
I'm actually far more surprised at what Sony has done. 2 years ago I thought this generation would be a slam dunk win for them, no questions asked. All they had to do was release an equal spec machine to the 360 at the same $300 price as last gen, and that would have been enough to leave them in a solid #1 spot again.
As for now, I still think in the end they'll lead the world-wide sales, but I think MS has a serious shot at #1 in North America, and can gain good ground everywhere but Japan.
I agree with your statement that MS is following the textbook example of marketing. It is tried and tested. OTOH, Sony is doing something against conventional wisdom this gen. Some possible reasons are:
* They may have a different definition of "customer" from you. It also depends on what the perception of "value" is when PS3 is released.
* Sony may be trying to evolve new models in digital distribution, game publishing and console manufacturing. The high initial cost is a one-time charge to jumpstart/fund these changes.
I have no answers except to see how things play out. Sometimes, conventional wisdom gets rewritten/modified based on new case studies. Most of the time, the former wins though.
Agree. Hopefully price will drop quickly and that initial PS3 comes with bundled content.
Based on announced info to date, I agree with you. The problem is further aggravated by Sony's silence. I think some of these complains can be alleviated somewhat by better communication with its users, and after complete disclosure of PS3's capabilities.
Yes, Sony has offended quite a few people with its "Set the goals first and work backwards" approach. From Ops angle, such approach is not wrong, but from marcom perspective, they should repackage it to the users.
Subtlesnake
Regular
I don't think it's clear that Microsoft are outspending their competition this generation, though, and if anything their spending has been very conservative. They debated whether to include a HD (because it was a major factor in their losses on the original Xbox) and they were initially reluctant to include more than 256 MB of system memory. Even when they did bite the bullet, instead of spending more they simply cut back on their plans elsewhere. On the game development side they'd already made major cuts, axing several internal projects (Mythica, Oddworld, Psychonauts, the entire sports division)
Dean Takahashi, author of "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked", accuses them of being too conservative. Here's one example from the book, where Ed Fries was faced with two potential publishing deals – one from Valve and one from Epic (Gears of War):
"Fries weighed both titles, holding stacks of contract papers in each hand at the same time. He looked at Epic on one hand, and Valve on the other. He decided, and he tossed the Valve deal in the garbage can. Those who heard about this decision later shook their heads and wondered why Fries didn't spend some of Microsoft's billions on both deals. It seemed like a case where Microsoft was goliath, but it felt like it was David."
No, publishers do not pay MS a fee for Live. If a publisher sells a lot of units, then MS gets royalties on that, and that's essentially their cut. The more popular a title, the more units get moved, and so the more royalties MS gets (although some games empahsize online more than others). But you're misunderstanding the Live service; there are no dedicated servers once a game session is set up. Every game is hosted on someone's box. There aren't any dedicated, standalone game servers out there as in the PC space. The dedicated servers are for matchmaking, leaderboards, friends, presence, etc.
EA forced MS to let them use their own matchmaking servers (game servers are still hosted on people's boxes). If you've ever played an EA game online, I'm sure you've seen the slow performance and the "Connection to Server lost" message, since it happens all the time. I've never seen this happen even once for a non-EA game. That's anecdotal experience, so take it with a grain of salt, but EA's online offerings have been widely criticized.
2k sports had the ESPN line. You're thinking of the XSN sports line (NFL Fever, et al.) which MGS published, which was a direct competitor on the Xbox but still nowhere near the level of threat that 2k sports is. I'm sure this did play a factor, but I still stand by my assertion that it was ownership of the customer relationship that was the deal killer. MS was more than willing to kill off that line to get EA on board, evidence of which is the fact that they did. Of course, neither of us can prove our assertions in a public forum anyway, so we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.
Nevertheless, it's true. Again, neither of us can ever prove it, so let's move on.
I don't mean to be snarky and elitist, but are you a developer whose worked with Xbox Live? Because this isn't true at all. There is a protocol defined for games to talk to their own dedicated servers if they so desire. For proof of this, simply look at the Burnout Revenge, which implements an online feature which tracks your rival across games. I guarantee that's not supported in the XDK.
Yes, at least there's somethng we can agree on. Sony may give them a run for their money online and force Live to be free (and consumers would win again!), but the proof is in the pudding. Building an online service is not easy.
Given the losses that it is assumed Sony will take from the inclusion of a BluRay drive in the PS3, I'm not sure how anyone can make this case. To be fair, they feel they will make it up on BluRay movie royalties, but it certainly is going to require a big initial spend.
As long as they are not far from each other marketshare-wise, the consumers should benefit. But if one of them establishes itself as a long-lived software platform monopoly, it may be very hard for the other party to compete.
In previous generations, every new game console gets redesigned from scratch, every game is rewritten from the ground up, ... so the market resets itself and encourage healthy competition. But there are signs that MS and Sony are going to solidify their positions using a long-lived software platform. We will have to see if the undesirable effects in the PC market carry over here.
Teasy said:
Copying is ok if there are improvements. Very often, a market leader can still compete effectively (lazily) by copying 80% of insurgent players' innovative features. IMHO this is not so good for the consumers.
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I think DVD revenues will be a much bigger source of income for them than Bluray will be for a long time!
Come on, MS is richer than many countries in this world. It also has a platform monopoly. I think Sony already predicted MS's move to leverage on their PC base. It also recognized MS's ability to sustain and establish exclusive nextgen titles. Most importantly, Sony knows that MS will try again even if it fails this gen.
As for surprise, I think Sony is more surprised by its Blu-ray screw up, than MS's capability.
I dont think so. Ripping tracks etc as well as xbox live ethernet connectivity out of the box were just two innovations that made the xbox a better choice for me over the other consoles... not to mention easy supported VGA and component connections plus 5.1...
EA Sports did want control over "their" users and used live connectivity as their in roads to user demographics info. It was nt the worst thing in the world but it was annoying.
ESPN belonged to 2K Sports not Microsoft Sports. EA wanted the console maker not to compete with the software seller (them). Then to rid themselves of competition in their bread and butter area (US Football) they bought the NFL license... and then contiuned to NOT innovate. EA on its best day is worse than MS... but they are a necessary evil in the console software world. Without EA's success your console will flounder (a la Dreamcast). MS could NOT afford for that to happen... Madden is too large.
MS has to walk the fine line of not alienating PC makers and supporting their box... why buy an alienware/gateway/dell/HP high end box... when you can get more and arguably better games for $300 or less and pay MICROSOFT... MS makes way more money from the other part of their business... now if Xbox gave them $8 billion in annual profits like windows/sql/office does then maybe they may not be stingy... I do agree that the option to control your own gamig experience (controller/lightgun/KBMS) should be available to the end user.
I do not really think the cost of XBL is the defining issue for it. It is services and features... I believe that MS picked the right path here with a controlled unifom/unified experience rather than the approaches which have been promoted by the other two makers. It is possible that they may come up with a scheme that allows them to offer similar features for free... but since everything has to be paid for by someone i doubt the quality will be either consistent or viable for very long... In fact we dont even know if the cost to consumers for XBL cover the entire cost of the service or is just a subsidy. A 24/7 worldwide network of consistent game and voice quality sounds pretty expensive...
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Sethamin and Blackjedi, thanks for the corrections, my memory had fuzzed up and mixed up ESPN with XSN.
I am very surprised that there are no dedicated servers involved. So someone on live is always the host? That surprises me, as that would limit performance very much to the upload capacity of the host. You then just have to be very lucky to have someone in your session with half-decent upload connection speed. I know from PC gaming that this didn't happen very often back in the early days.
Surely this model isn't going to work for certain games, especially with a large number of gamers involved ... also makes me wonder if the lag-free experience in some games on the various platform depends more on the fact that mostly rich people with good broadband have gotten Xboxes in the past than anything else?
If this is the limit of the extent that Microsoft offers in terms of Live service, I am surprised. I mean, it's a good service, but I had really expected it to include game servers on a larger scale.
Surely a 16 player Halo match is hosted by a server though? I know that 32 player Socom matches are hosted by servers for sure.
I am very surprised that there are no dedicated servers involved. So someone on live is always the host? That surprises me, as that would limit performance very much to the upload capacity of the host. You then just have to be very lucky to have someone in your session with half-decent upload connection speed. I know from PC gaming that this didn't happen very often back in the early days.
Surely this model isn't going to work for certain games, especially with a large number of gamers involved ... also makes me wonder if the lag-free experience in some games on the various platform depends more on the fact that mostly rich people with good broadband have gotten Xboxes in the past than anything else?
If this is the limit of the extent that Microsoft offers in terms of Live service, I am surprised. I mean, it's a good service, but I had really expected it to include game servers on a larger scale.
Surely a 16 player Halo match is hosted by a server though? I know that 32 player Socom matches are hosted by servers for sure.
That is not always true. There are games that do have dedicated host servers available. They are just the exception rather than the norm, at least for now.
Yup. This is also why you get some weird connection issues if you're in a party where no one has an Open NAT. Live is generally very good at poking through them, but not if they keep switching the ports around and do other things which make it difficult to keep a connection open. Also, voice chat is all peer-to-peer as well, which is why sometimes you can't hear other people (again, NAT issues).
As I mentioned, there's a mechanism defined for Live games to go to other servers. Right now it's just used for custom features here and there, but in the future it may be used for MMOs and games of that nature. However, those types of games that require dedicated servers are almost certainly going to require an extra fee to cover the cost.
Nope, and I guarantee no online service will ever offer it. Why? Because it doesn't scale. As you get to millions and millions of users, you costs skyrocket because you need enough servers for peak usage times, not aggregate. It's like with roads in the US; there is more than enough road capacity for all cars throughout the day, just not when everyone wants to go into work at 9 and leave at 5.
I take that back. Someone may offer it, but not at a reasonable cost and a large scale.
I don't know about Halo specifically, but I don't think so.
As a single console consumer I almost always prefer a runaway market leader with competitors filling in the space catering to the niche sectors. PS1 and PS2 generations suited me better, I could get pretty much every game I wanted on one platform. A lot of people feel the same way, multiplatform gamers are the minority and for good reason, for most people it is not justifiable to spend money on more hardware just to enjoy one or two more games they may like.
The market leader in this industry does not have the same monopoly power that exists in others all thanks to the hardware cycle. This keeps everyone on their toes, Sony reacted like a house on fire to the release of Dreamcast, promising hand over fist many visions for their platform – with the subsequent death knell for that system day and date with the PS2’s official announcement the incentive to deliver on those disappeared till Microsoft’s entrance.
In retrospect Sony’s response to Dreamcast was like that of a competitor in a highly competitive marketplace, it was an overreaction, hindsight shows us that Sega was not in any position to be anything more than a niche to Sony’s hegemony.
Very soon this industry will reach a crossroads; in fact we may already be at that point (Nintendo). Will we see an evolution where competitors will be satisfied with a smaller more lucrative user base or do they still want the mainstream? I think all signs point to them pushing for further expansion. David Reeves (CEO SCEE) always talks about growth and Microsoft has always made it clear they share the sentiment. Nintendo have already gone down a different path to try and capture the untapped masses, will Sony and Microsoft follow?
Personally, I hope that both of them don’t sacrifice hardware power and value in order to follow Nintendo’s path, sooner or later I think they will have to follow that path.
In many ways Nintendo’s new direction is right. The industry over the last couple of years has moved towards a very stereotypical path. The marketing is losing focus. Their also seems to be a creativity black-hole. The number of titles being released with very predictable themes, plots and styles seems ever growing.
I’m not the only one who is not fed up with “set in the near-futureâ€/sci-fi themes that seems to dominate. In Japan JRPG's not named FF/DQ sell pretty much next to nothing these days (there are exceptions), at the same time Square's stalwarts are losing momentum. If you look at the 360’s biggest upcoming titles it’s your perfect stereotypical mix aimed squarely at young males. Sony is also worryingly going down a similar path but the sheer scope of SCEWWS kind of precludes you from getting that general feeling…yet.
I will never understand why Sony did not bundle the new EyeToy with PS3. That is their biggest innovation in recent years. The number of non-gamers, female gamers and “lapsed†gamers that it has pulled in is amazing as an add-on for PS2 in Europe.
SCEI is carrying a big-burden with Blu-Ray for this generation. Once Blu-Ray was in it was never going out. If PS3 can lead again in market share by some sort of a clear margin over the rest (this is not a done deal at all now) with the brand intact then I think SCEI will be mighty confident for the next round, with their ability to deliver hardware cheaper than the competition unshackled.
The market leader in this industry does not have the same monopoly power that exists in others all thanks to the hardware cycle. This keeps everyone on their toes, Sony reacted like a house on fire to the release of Dreamcast, promising hand over fist many visions for their platform – with the subsequent death knell for that system day and date with the PS2’s official announcement the incentive to deliver on those disappeared till Microsoft’s entrance.
In retrospect Sony’s response to Dreamcast was like that of a competitor in a highly competitive marketplace, it was an overreaction, hindsight shows us that Sega was not in any position to be anything more than a niche to Sony’s hegemony.
Very soon this industry will reach a crossroads; in fact we may already be at that point (Nintendo). Will we see an evolution where competitors will be satisfied with a smaller more lucrative user base or do they still want the mainstream? I think all signs point to them pushing for further expansion. David Reeves (CEO SCEE) always talks about growth and Microsoft has always made it clear they share the sentiment. Nintendo have already gone down a different path to try and capture the untapped masses, will Sony and Microsoft follow?
Personally, I hope that both of them don’t sacrifice hardware power and value in order to follow Nintendo’s path, sooner or later I think they will have to follow that path.
In many ways Nintendo’s new direction is right. The industry over the last couple of years has moved towards a very stereotypical path. The marketing is losing focus. Their also seems to be a creativity black-hole. The number of titles being released with very predictable themes, plots and styles seems ever growing.
I’m not the only one who is not fed up with “set in the near-futureâ€/sci-fi themes that seems to dominate. In Japan JRPG's not named FF/DQ sell pretty much next to nothing these days (there are exceptions), at the same time Square's stalwarts are losing momentum. If you look at the 360’s biggest upcoming titles it’s your perfect stereotypical mix aimed squarely at young males. Sony is also worryingly going down a similar path but the sheer scope of SCEWWS kind of precludes you from getting that general feeling…yet.
I will never understand why Sony did not bundle the new EyeToy with PS3. That is their biggest innovation in recent years. The number of non-gamers, female gamers and “lapsed†gamers that it has pulled in is amazing as an add-on for PS2 in Europe.
SCEI is carrying a big-burden with Blu-Ray for this generation. Once Blu-Ray was in it was never going out. If PS3 can lead again in market share by some sort of a clear margin over the rest (this is not a done deal at all now) with the brand intact then I think SCEI will be mighty confident for the next round, with their ability to deliver hardware cheaper than the competition unshackled.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Actually what happened was there was a changing of the guard at the top of the XBOX division.
Which just goes to show, a product is more a result of the people is in charge of it's creation, rather than the overall philosophy/stereotype of the parent company.
XBOX1 pushed some boundries, 360 is more of a typical, low risk console, all in all it's the games that matter not hardware, and what we should really look at is the publishing efforts, and who is creating the most innovative games. Right now Sony would have to be the more innovative imo.
As an aside, does it seem to anyone else that the XBOX division is getting some help from the Games for Windows brand in securing exclusives? It seems that, they may be getting access to the huge pot of money that is windows, and using those funds to secure exclusives for both platforms. This could be big trouble for Sony if they continue to invest like this.
Not sure if it's relevant to this thread, but I saw an interesting post on TXB, in 2001-2005 MS published 52 games. In 2005-2007 They will publish at least ~26:
Microsoft Published Games
Xbox 360 2005 - ( 26 Games)
Alan Wake
Banjo-Kazooie 3
Blue Dragon
Crackdown
Every Party
Fable 2
Forza Motorsport 2
Fuzion Frenzy 2
Gears of War
Halo 3
Halo Wars
Infinite Undiscovery
Kameo: Elements of Power - Published
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Lost Odyssey
Marvel Universe Online
Mass Effect
N3: Ninety-Nine Nights - Published
Perfect Dark Zero - Published
Project Gotham Racing 3
Project Gotham Racing 4
Shadowrun
Too Human
Viva Pinata
(Untitled Wingnut Interactive Project)
(Untitled Mistwalker Studios Project)
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I think that fewer high quality titles from the first party is a better move. More money concentrated on fewer titles is great for "us." Also there is difference between developed and published... so if your idea is such that MS can see clear monetary gain from it in terms of sales, mindshare, innovation, etc., of course MS will be willing to pick it up... but every company picks winners and losers. Blinx was a MAJOR loser last gen. And in my humble opinion, losing the team behind heavenly Sword was in hidnsight an obvious loss... but budgets are not unlimited... and hopefully there is someone else in the world that can provide the same level of engineering and design talent to MGS that they lost by not capturing NT... I think that MS knows this and is hoping that XBLA does the culling for that talent... a small but beautiful and technically proficient ttile/playable demo will garner MGS' attention quicker than a business plan and tech demo from and unknown company...
There's something to be said for that, as there are advantages and disadvantages for each. Look at Windows, for example; for all of the negative sides of that (we don't need to discuss that here), the positives are that everything runs on Windows so neither consumers nor developers need to worry about targeting multiple platforms. For all of that, though, I still think that we need competition, lest we still be playing on cartridges with one analog stick, no DVD player, and no online support.
I, for one, don't buy this at all. It's very popular nowadays to sound the alarms about how the games industry is in a rut. The reality is that the industry has never been bigger, nor had more titles published. Sure, in terms of percentages of games shipped and units sold there are easily fewer creative and ground-breaking titles than there used to be. But there are also way more of those titles in absolute numbers, since the industry is much bigger. It used to be that I could play just about any interesting game worth playing. Nowadays I don't have anywhere near enough time for it at all, and it's not just lifestyle changes.
What's really happening here is that this industry is growing, and just like the movie industry, the big name publishers are becoming risk-adverse and moving towards sure-fire, conservative hits like Madden, GTA, FF, DQ, etc. However, because of that, it leaves room for smaller publishers and developers to create underground sleeper hits and breakthroughs. The parallels to the movie industry are very convincing here and very relevant. I understand people probably have nostalgia for the days when there were nothing but small developers and innovative titles, but the growth of the industry just means the signal to noise is higher, that's all. The good titles are still there and in greater numbers than ever before, you just have to be more aware and look harder.
I don't mean to club you over the head with the analogy, but the movie industry really, really fits here. There was a golden age of filmmaking back in the 30s and 40s, and I'm sure people long for that, too. But besides most of the crap that comes out of Hollywood these days, there are still good films out there. In fact, there are great films out there; tons and tons and tons of great indie films. They may not be in the public eye, but they're there. And I feel like we'll look back on this 20 years from now with an even bigger and more thriving games industry and wonder what the hell everyone was panicing about.
I'm not advocating no competition, certainly not a Windows like situation, for most people a situation where there is one console where you can get the majority of games is favorable. Certainly the PS2 generation had competition and bears little similiarity with the PC OS market.
I'm talking about greater growth. The industry can expand faster, there is a whole swathe of the populace that it just does not appeal to on any level, it is not because they don’t want it but it is because the industry has never seriously tried to cater for that market. That's where they are losing focus. I take your movie analogy as a given, it is the perfect analogy!
My point goes beyond the current trends in the industry. For it to truly guarantee itself future growth and sustainability it will need to start targeting people outside the 18-35 male demographic. The PSX was a real expansion of the industry with new methods, and new marketing (although Europe accounts for most of that growth). The next step is to push this further in to other consumer groups.
scooby_dooby
Legend
President of Ubisoft weighs in:
I wouldn't mind a breaking up of the norm, but it's for entirely self-centered reasons. As a follower of game news, breaking things up is much more exciting than reaffirming the norm.
That said, I doubt there will be a clear winner this time around.
That said, I doubt there will be a clear winner this time around.
