How to sell next-gen consoles, Marketing, Positioning, and Pricing [2020]

Both MS and Sony have very little in the way of true next gen offerings at this point, but Sony is definitely further ahead it would seem from a game development standpoint. Perhaps only by a couple months or so though.

For myself, I'm behind in my game playing so I'm ok just playing The Medium, Ori 2, Gears 5, Gears Tactics and Forza Horizon 4 on my new XSX 6 weeks from now and Cyberpunk 2077 when it gets the true patch early next year, but I can understand complaints from people that want more new next gen games.
 
They have a long history with Sega.

Didn't they already coorporate with the 2001 xbox? Basically everything dreamcast came to the Xbox, in an enhanced way. DOA3 and Ultimate looked better then any other fighter that gen and played very well. Its no virtua fighter though.
Panzer dragoon made it to xbox too, same for some others like shenmue.
 
Never played Panzer Dragoon but with the huge popularity of GoT, surprised nobody has made a quality dragon-rider game.

I'm sure there have been games with dragons but I'm talking about something good.
 
Didn't they already coorporate with the 2001 xbox? Basically everything dreamcast came to the Xbox, in an enhanced way. DOA3 and Ultimate looked better then any other fighter that gen and played very well. Its no virtua fighter though.
Panzer dragoon made it to xbox too, same for some others like shenmue.

MS / Sega goes back to the origins of the dreamcast. There are actually 2 operating systems for it. One was a custom OS by sega and one was Windows CE. MS wouldn't have entered the market with the xbox is sega didn't crash hard
 
Very important questions. MS has a serious issue with showing Series X gameplay and they seem to be taking it across the nose over and over again.

It’s great they have this other stuff working and well communicated but they are sorely lacking in this area. I have no imagination to explain the hold up and it only ventures to the negative over time.
My issue is they kept banging on about ’most powerful console’ but they’ve not shown anything to back that up.

I think it’s going to be really hard for MS to demonstrate any tangible hardware advantage in ‘the latest games’ and this is why they have focused on BC where thy hey are clearly ahead of Sony.
 
My issue is they kept banging on about ’most powerful console’ but they’ve not shown anything to back that up.

I think it’s going to be really hard for MS to demonstrate any tangible hardware advantage in ‘the latest games’ and this is why they have focused on BC where thy hey are clearly ahead of Sony.

MS has a release schedule of content drops that the press and influencers are allowed to release stuff. You'll see next gen games in Oct
 
My issue is they kept banging on about ’most powerful console’ but they’ve not shown anything to back that up.

I think it’s going to be really hard for MS to demonstrate any tangible hardware advantage in ‘the latest games’ and this is why they have focused on BC where thy hey are clearly ahead of Sony.

Allegedly they havent shown everything just yet. Maybe they don't have to show that they are powerfull as multiplat games will show that anyway, in special with the attention some games like 2077 and the cod are getting, reviewers and things like DF will point that out anyway.
Aside from that, i think Sony hasnt really shown much either, more then MS regarding exclusives yes, but nothing 'true next gen' just yet. I assume thats going to come 2021 and beyond.

MS should show some of HB2, if the last trailer was something to go by, its ahead of anything Sony. We dont know if its actual ingame render though, just in engine which can be anything?
 
My issue is they kept banging on about ’most powerful console’ but they’ve not shown anything to back that up.

I think it’s going to be really hard for MS to demonstrate any tangible hardware advantage in ‘the latest games’ and this is why they have focused on BC where thy hey are clearly ahead of Sony.
indeed. Oddly noticing some parallels between how they both market.
Sony believes in generations they say: Games are locked and loaded for PS5 but having weird issues with saves moving forward from PS4 -> PS5
MS believes does not believe in generations they say: BC, Smart delivery and others are all ready, but having no games ready for Series X/S

no doubt, it's really just marketing to make up for their weaknesses, hopefully both will resolve as this coming generation matures and it solves those issues.
 
indeed. Oddly noticing some parallels between how they both market.
Sony believes in generations they say: Games are locked and loaded for PS5 but having weird issues with saves moving forward from PS4 -> PS5
MS believes does not believe in generations they say: BC, Smart delivery and others are all ready, but having no games ready for Series X/S

no doubt, it's really just marketing to make up for their weaknesses, hopefully both will resolve as this coming generation matures and it solves those issues.
A lot of it is due to the timing of the acquired studios. They went from a handful to more than 20 stat. Going forward, they should have 5+ 1st party games per year on a staggered 3-4 year cycle.
But if we're being real, a lot of people play sports games, GTA and COD on these machines anyway.
 
A lot of it is due to the timing of the acquired studios. They went from a handful to more than 20 stat. Going forward, they should have 5+ 1st party games per year on a staggered 3-4 year cycle.
When I hear this reasoning I always wonder why people think MS only got studios in the last couple years.

Some examples of what they could've done (if they haven't)
  • Forza horizon standalone dlc (like fast and furious or their other ones)
  • Has both halo reach and odst had the anniversary treatment?
  • Gears 5 dlc
These are just a couple things that could've been done, and wouldn't even need to be next gen exclusive, just built with the next gen as lead platform/target.

  • From some of their new'ish studios, what about a remaster, which could take about a year to do?

Sure they was expecting to have halo infinite which is a whole other issue, but just that one was never enough anyway.

They do have a couple things to show like gears 5, horizon 4, minecraft patches. All of which was probably less than 9 months or so of work by a few people.
  • Hopefully minecraft dungeons gets a decent patch also.

In the end its just simple lack of forsight, not willing to invest at the time, etc.
Not expecting 10 first party games at launch.
Their not Google or amazon who just got into it with no studios.
 
When I hear this reasoning I always wonder why people think MS only got studios in the last couple years.

Some examples of what they could've done (if they haven't)
  • Forza horizon standalone dlc (like fast and furious or their other ones)
  • Has both halo reach and odst had the anniversary treatment?
  • Gears 5 dlc
These are just a couple things that could've been done, and wouldn't even need to be next gen exclusive, just built with the next gen as lead platform/target.

  • From some of their new'ish studios, what about a remaster, which could take about a year to do?

Sure they was expecting to have halo infinite which is a whole other issue, but just that one was never enough anyway.

They do have a couple things to show like gears 5, horizon 4, minecraft patches. All of which was probably less than 9 months or so of work by a few people.
  • Hopefully minecraft dungeons gets a decent patch also.

In the end its just simple lack of forsight, not willing to invest at the time, etc.
Not expecting 10 first party games at launch.
Their not Google or amazon who just got into it with no studios.
They went from 5-6 studios to over 20 in the last 2-3 years. That is 4x.
Yes, they could have asked teams to prioritize content for Series launch but it seems they are prioritizing getting content to Gamepass.
Things are changing re: generations. In this console release cycle, we have two exclusive next gen games at launch that I know of. Certainly no 3rd party exclusive. This would be completely unheard of before.
 
They went from 5-6 studios to over 20 in the last 2-3 years. That is 4x.
Yes, they could have asked teams to prioritize content for Series launch but it seems they are prioritizing getting content to Gamepass.
Things are changing re: generations. In this console release cycle, we have two exclusive next gen games at launch that I know of. Certainly no 3rd party exclusive. This would be completely unheard of before.

But even with their original studios, they knew there was a new generation on its way?

It’s not like they’ve been busy banging out titles the last two years.
 
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