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

The launch period is for early adopters. They sell everything they can produce and it's the following year that will be more indicative.

The two consoles are at technological parity looking at the full specs, some aspects better on one than the other and vice versa. Which aspect will influence games the most is not going to answered for a while. If both are at the same retail price, sony will maintain their 2:1 sales ratio because their momentum will follow through from last gen to the next.

Current gamers have already decided what they'll buy, they will upgrade their current console unless something dramatic happens, and we haven't seen any drama so far. I don't think pricing will impact this unless there's a big difference between the two prices, or if one of them goes above 499 or something.

Lockhart is a big unknown, it could have a big impact in either direction... or not...

 

You never had the bulky model? The slim came out in 2009. Sony dropped the price of PS3 to €399 in 2007, but that was still original form factor with the PS2 parts stripped out.

 

My strategy would be..
MS: - Release a "premium" version of the XsX, call it a founders edition with 12/24 months Full gamepass for $599, or whatever price is basically break even for the console, in Sep/Oct, basically as soon as possible.
Whilst also being very clear in messaging that the exact same HW, minus with only 2 free months gamepass, will be available "on general availability" @ 499 in Nov/Dec.
Basically go early with a high price to get all the early adopters who will pay pretty much anything for the new shiny.
Then 2 months later, go realistic with a product that might take a loss on sales, but at a much more mainstream price.
Sony: same thing, but they dont have as much to offer for the annual price add-on part.

 

Sony could do something similar with PSNow or PS+ or both.

 

I'll go out on a limb here and say early adopters couldn't give a rats backside about 'free' gamepass ultimate. You would be much better just having a launch edition console with some marker to say as much and some kind of 'thank you'. I think giving GPU with Lockheart would be a big deal, imagine a $400 Lockheart with 12 months GPU - essentially you can not only get next gen but also a good amount of games for the first year and all your online play for just $400. That would hit a sweet-spot I recon.

 

Even when xbox was getting crushed and doing offers, never did they throw in a year of live even.

I don't see them throwing in a year of GPU. 1 month, 6 possibly at a push. Enough to let people get a taste of it.
Hopefully more than 14 days.
Might put month for a dollar in there actually.

 

Having GamePassUltimate on initial Series X offer wont do much of anything since early adopters likely have it stacked out to 3 years already and done so for as cheap as possible. It's not a genuine value add.

 

Talk about cost cutting. Guys want Lockhart to ship without GPU! How is this thing gonna render its graphics?

 

It will have amazing 4D Audio!

 

SSD says hi just kidding couldnt resist

 

What if it's the opposite? Lockhart is just a eGPU for Surface devices? LOL

Tommy McClain

 

I could see a play to use "Xbox All In" to bundle monthly payment plan, Lockhart, Xbox Gold, and Xbox Game Pass together with maybe an option to upgrade to Ultimate for $5 more a month. No sense in pitching PC aspect on everything if that's not your designated target base.

 

It's not a surprise both are having short term sales on subs, whenever it happens people stack them up instead of paying full price when the time has come to renew.

A couple years of subs with no refund is locking people on their respective platform. It's just one more hook, in addition to the digital library, and the friends list, to make a full jump to another platform even more steep this time around.

 

I think most people didn't know that 3 years stacks trick. Microsoft allows it, but they also didn't do any marketing with it AFAIK.

So common folks probably didn't do it. But then, early adopters are usually not common folks.. They are evangelist, hardcore gamer, tech enthusiasts that probably reads gaming news.. So they probably already get the 3 years of ultimate...

Maybe make it stacks. So now you'll have 5 years of ultimate

 

It's not impossible to envisage a position where Microsoft price lower than Sony. It depends on how the consoles are marketed and how that resonates. XSX will be more powerful but we know PS5 is promising near zero load times. If that appeals more to consumers, regardless of the performance difference, that feature could be perceived as being more valuable. It sure as hell is to those of us with little time!

 

Oh but XSX is going to be having near zero load times too, if any. Loading won't be a problem on any of these machines, that was the main thing with the whole SSD from the beginning.

 

I'll likely still be fussing about with my headset long after any next-gen game is loaded on next-gen consoles. About the only current-gen game that takes longer to load than me unpacking my Shure 425 EarBuds is Borderlands 3 when it's a cold load.

 

You don't play destiny 2 then.

I can brew tea while reading news on the shitter waiting for the initial load into the traveller.

That game is the epitome of sitting around watching a terribly long load screen... everywhere. The inventory is a load screen, most of the time you're waiting for it to load the textures for your gun or armor.

 

I am Destiny Free! I do remember from the loading screens and traveling from the planet to space just to travel down to the planet being rather daft during the Beta. I also do not play that EA Anthem game either. That had even longer load screens than Destiny.

 

an e-gpu that works across the entire surface line going forward could be really awesome. But it would have to include the cpu also.