Ejected sales thread noise *spawn

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't know about the UK, but in the USA cord cutting in many ways has been proven to be a myth, with pay tv subscribers actually increasing over the years. I presume that's the market MS were targeting.

EDIT: Link with some data on that: http://www.techspot.com/article/815-cord-cutting-myths/

Interesting, thanks. It doesn't look like cable TV is showing much growth either which generally isn't a healthy longterm outlook for an industry reluctant to change so would be an odd thing for Microsoft to hang a 10 year console strategy on.

I'd still like to know Mattrick & Co were thinking.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I'd still like to know Mattrick & Co were thinking.

Always online: financial gain
DRM: financial gain
One input / TV: entertainment control and financial gain

etc.

It's almost like the original plan was to see how many possible ways there were to fleece the consumer. It absolutely beggars belief that Microsoft seemed to think that people would just be happy with this...

Anyway, it's only been onwards and upwards since that event. I genuinely hope their sales start to pick up.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't know about the UK.http://www.techspot.com/article/815-cord-cutting-myths/

Cords don't exist to cut in the UK. People optionally subscribe to cable services (generally at pretty good rates as they come bundled with telecoms and internet), but there are 100+ Freeview channels available and TV over internet. Optional access to cable/satellite is basically to add US, sports and movie channels. I believe its the same in continental Europe.

 

[temesgen]

In retrospect I think it's clear that a lot of senior people in Microsoft had been convinced, or convinced themselves, that a living room social device was the future and the Xbox was chosen to be the trojan horse to deliver this.

A question I can see I asked [in these forums] after the initial May 2013 reveal, was why did Microsoft think TV was so important? Cord-cutting and streaming were (and still are) only gaining in popularity, they must have had some research to strongly support this strategy. I'd still love to see it!

I think cord cutting is a real issue for the cable providers in the US the issue here is cost. Most streaming TV service about 10 dollars a month and the boxes which bring that content are about 100 bucks... 500 to get started really makes it a difficult sale.

 

[blakjedi]

because im not a cord cutter and i actually watch television... i only had problems with the "not connected, the console is brick" strategy. I didn't mind anything else really.

I would imagine as vociferous as some people are in ONLINE forums... that the always on on angst was just Anti-MS sputum... im mean they were online all the time in forums anyway right?

 

[Rangers]

Always online: financial gain
DRM: financial gain
One input / TV: entertainment control and financial gain

etc.

It's almost like the original plan was to see how many possible ways there were to fleece the consumer. It absolutely beggars belief that Microsoft seemed to think that people would just be happy with this...

Anyway, it's only been onwards and upwards since that event. I genuinely hope their sales start to pick up.

Uhh...how so? All that stuff was free. I guess you could look at the DRM as some sort of profit grab against used games (although Sony was already doing that with 1st party online pay pass).

Plus, protip, this is the point of all corporations. Google, Apple, even Sony, all want to control and profit off as much as they can. Sony may just not be as smart about it or something, why they lose money?

Sony is actually starting a online pay TV TV TV http://gigaom.com/2014/01/07/sony-cloud-tv-service/ this year (which I'm actually interested in), and was the only platform holder to dedicate substantial conference time at E3 to TV, which PS4 will figure heavily into ironically. Hell, they're literally launching a product called PlayStation TV. But, that's what corporations do.

I still get back to 99% of what MS did wrong and Sony did right was just hardware power. The whole business piggyback's off that. If MS put out some 3 TF box instead of 1.3, it would be like a looming shadow everybody knew would eventually dominate the industry, even at $499.

 

[London Geezer]

We even have Freesat which has even more HD channels and of course is what I'm using DOH

 

[wco81]

What was MS thinking?

There were rumors about Apple coming out with some TV product and Google had targeted the living room more than once.

MS missed out on phones and tablets. It was going to stake its claim to the living room early, just in case it turned into the next multibillion dollar business.

 

[temesgen]

Uhh...how so? All that stuff was free. I guess you could look at the DRM as some sort of profit grab against used games (although Sony was already doing that with 1st party online pay pass).

Plus, protip, this is the point of all corporations. Google, Apple, even Sony, all want to control and profit off as much as they can. Sony may just not be as smart about it or something, why they lose money?

Sony is actually starting a online pay TV TV TV http://gigaom.com/2014/01/07/sony-cloud-tv-service/ this year (which I'm actually interested in), and was the only platform holder to dedicate substantial conference time at E3 to TV, which PS4 will figure heavily into ironically. Hell, they're literally launching a product called PlayStation TV. But, that's what corporations do.

I still get back to 99% of what MS did wrong and Sony did right was just hardware power. The whole business piggyback's off that. If MS put out some 3 TF box instead of 1.3, it would be like a looming shadow everybody knew would eventually dominate the industry, even at $499.

This has been my thought since the reveal last year, gamers don't mind paying a premium for a console if its powerful but when your asking them to pay more and compromising specs to do other things at a higher price (kinect and HDMI in) they're not interested.

The TV side of things should not impact the cost of the console in any material way and if either platform holder actually had a decent IP TV service at a decent price to offer most people would take serious look at it.

 

[Entropy]

What was MS thinking?

There were rumors about Apple coming out with some TV product and Google had targeted the living room more than once.

MS missed out on phones and tablets. It was going to stake its claim to the living room early, just in case it turned into the next multibillion dollar business.

This, I believe, is close to the truth. They had statistics showing that their consoles were used for general media consumption, and they had statistics showing that consoles were a growing business. While it is easy to say that Microsoft once again was remarkably tone deaf regarding market movements (and I'd agree) they did have evidence supporting their stance. Also, in a scenario with multiple possible outcomes it makes sense for Microsoft to gamble on the one that gives maximum return on investment. Their financial situation both allows and requires it. I doubt they are terribly interested as a corporate entity in selling a few million consoles per year into a shrinking market just to keep gamers happy. Compared to the vision they gambled on, and sold internally and to media businesses, the reality of the market and their position in it has to be a terrible disappointment.

 

[Billy Idol]

You only need to watch the X1 reveal to understand what went wrong. That conference changed Xbox as a brand. The rest of the PR blunders afterwards were just icing on the cake.

Yeah, I agree. At least it did for me, until this E3. Also the focus on the US tv/sports market.

 

[3dilettante]

The TV side of things should not impact the cost of the console in any material way and if either platform holder actually had a decent IP TV service at a decent price to offer most people would take serious look at it.

This is something that multiple tech companies have tried to get into, but shows some excessive optimism or possibly hubris on the part of Microsoft to think that it was going to have an edge on the companies with entrenched interests there.
Intel learned this from its aborted IPTV effort as well.

They aren't the big fish in this pond.

To highlight this, one should look at Microsoft's entertainment unification goals and reliance on an always-on connection and how that puts two prongs of its approach at the mercy of such corporate partners like Comcast.
This is the network provider that America hates more than big banking, and who just recently stopped strangling Netflix, for a fee. It is currently one of the big money sources for a concerted lobbying effort to goad Congress into bullying the FCC. In case the FCC run by a former cable lobbyist and whose predecessor left the FCC to be employed by said industry somehow does something the industry doesn't want.

It also owns a television/entertainment/news network, and as such is an content owner that an IP TV service would need to dance with, and then hope it doesn't get throttled by.
Who has released a DVR/entertainment service with voice control.

And called it X1.

It would only get better if it had an adult movie service with a category called Ex-Bone to really rub it in or out.


Then Microsoft talked up cloud computing and services, and somehow EA was allowed to be anywhere near the stage.

 

[temesgen]

Netflix, ESPN, HBO & prime only require an app to work, even the most basic hardware can run this stuff so atleast imo adding voice and gesture controls wont suddenly make most consumers willing to pay 500 and an additional monthly fee (due to the pay wall) to access these services. And many gamers were wondering why was a GPU compromised so I could talk to my TV?

MS could have done a deal with NFL, built a partnership with HULU or Netflix or created their own service and been ok if they simply had not opted to compromise the power of the machine. TV wasn't the mistake it was giving up specs to do TV in a new way (talking and gesturing) that cost more up front and monthly that was off.

If MS had announced a more powerful XB1 last year with a new tier for LIVE that was giving music, movies like Amazon does, additionally the NFL and some free cloud storage for music, photos, videos and a game or 2 every month they would have had a very different reaction. Amazon is able to do it so why not MS? Yes its a book not a game with Amazon but you get my point...

 

[Entropy]

While making a (much) more powerful Xbox could have affected Microsofts position vs. Sony, it wouldn't have expanded the console market as a whole. Going lower power with a large enclosure and external power brick ensured that they could make a cool running and quiet console, less risky for for consumers and manufacturer both, and better suited at media tasks than a noisier machine would be.

Microsoft designed their new console based on previous experience (RROD) and target market (media hub). It wouldn't have attracted any additional customers to consoles if it had been twice as powerful, that entire line of thought is focused on Sony vs. MS gamer marketshare, and Microsoft was looking at the bigger picture.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

I can only speak for myself here, but my only reason for buying a console is to play games - any ancillary functions it provides are simply a ‘bonus’. It really might be true that Netflix is used on my console more than I spend playing games, then there’s four people in my family, all of them watch TV while a fraction play games. I am the only person in my household that will buy a console and I buy them for games and let’s not forget that the reveal was suggesting that the box’s primary function is for TV.

Chromecast is a device that provides TV streaming and it costs a tiny fraction of a console, has no monthly fee and it’s a fairly open platform.

I can definitely follow the logic of having TV as a focus, it’s just that making this the primary function was completely wrong. As far as I can tell, the Kinect is best used for functionality that isn’t for gaming. Had Microsoft chosen gaming first and sold the box for the same amount minus Kinect and adding a separate CPU/GPU, then they really would have an absolute beast of a box right now. They could have easily said “oh and we have an HDMI-in” that you can plug other devices into and that would have been a nice bonus. The Kinect could have been sold separately and they’d have been making extra money from it.

Microsoft must have spent an awful lot of money to get all of those sports licences…

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The last couple of pages of sales thread discussion covered a wide range of meandering topics, such that they don't really form a thread subject in themselves. Each point should be discussed in an existing thread (eg. Business discussion, or new "Xbox, what went wrong?"). This thread exists for the purpose of somewhere to put such meandering OTs in future.