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

[iroboto]

And on a related note, it is also why pushing games to support the One (ie Halo Infinite) is stupid, as the vast majority of people are now saying. Let it go! Just make the XSS the new minimum and go for it.

There's a reason for this likely related to XCloud. But yea, Halo unfortunately is a victim of being in no-mans land.

But the issue really stems down to 343i.
I'ts doable:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-analysis

and Black Ops Cold war with it's 4K, VRS, 60-120, and GI solutions sort of prove that. MW was released just last year around this time.

 

[London Geezer]

From my experience of it, COD games tend to have very controlled first person campaigns, definitely not open world and very much designed exactly to the point. Which is why they run pretty darn well even on current gen platforms.

 

[Karamazov]

even with compression artifacts and latency, games will end up looking better via Xcloud than one Xbox One on even XBX.
They should drop support for the One.

 

[iroboto]

From my experience of it, COD games tend to have very controlled first person campaigns, definitely not open world and very much designed exactly to the point. Which is why they run pretty darn well even on surrene gen platforms.

that's fair, but Call of Duty Warzone is as open world as it gets and has 100+ players and it runs on XBO.

Unreal Engine 5 will support all platforms and consoles as well and that seems to scale the furthest of the group

 

[AzBat]

From my experience of it, COD games tend to have very controlled first person campaigns, definitely not open world and very much designed exactly to the point. Which is why they run pretty darn well even on surrene gen platforms.

RDR 2 looked great all on consoles & it was open world. Halo Infinite sacrificed quality for 60fps. The problem isn't the hardware. It's the game that's the problem.

Tommy McClain

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Allegedly their guidance is develop for Series X first and then fine-tune on LockHart platform.

That's what Microsoft would say. But it's always been easier to scale up than down. Target Lockhart first, make sure the damn game can even run on it then dial pixels to 11.

 

[Jay]

That's what Microsoft would say. But it's always been easier to scale up than down. Target Lockhart first, make sure the damn game can even run on it then dial pixels to 11.

If the Lockhart is the lead platform and targets 1080p, you may have to either dial back the xsx version to 9 or drop the resolution to match it.

 

[Xbat]

That's what Microsoft would say. But it's always been easier to scale up than down. Target Lockhart first, make sure the damn game can even run on it then dial pixels to 11.

Yup and I would be surprised if it was any other way. Lockhart having the same CPU performance and SSD should go along way in making it easy to dial it up and get good results with the Series X.

Unless they start using new technologies that require a certain amount of compute then there could be issues.

 

[BRiT]

Other aspect to remember is the dev tools target Series X since the beginning and only recently have had Lockhart targets enabled.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

If the Lockhart is the lead platform and targets 1080p, you may have to either dial back the xsx version to 9 or drop the resolution to match it.

I'm hoping devs will be more ambitious and aiming to target >1080p (upto 1440p) internal resolution on Series S. Not always, but mostly.

 

[iroboto]

It's surreal that we're about end of August and another console will be announced 60-90 days before launch.
And we still don't have enough details on the current consoles, like pricing and availability, BC support etc,; to even look at this new console with virtually no details as well (specs etc)

 

[London Geezer]

It's surreal that we're about end of August and another console will be announced 60-90 days before launch.
And we still don't have enough details on the current consoles, like pricing and availability, BC support etc,; to even look at this new console with virtually no details as well (specs etc)

Again - it’s just insane.

I guess it’s a very Apple thing?

So fair enough if that’s what they’re going for, but given how things have worked in this industry since the 90’s, this whole thing - no price, no release date, and ANOTHER WHOLE CONSOLE STILL UNANNOUNCED, a couple of month before the rumoured release - is kookoo land to me.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's surreal that we're about end of August and another console will be announced 60-90 days before launch. And we still don't have enough details on the current consoles, like pricing and availability, BC support etc,; to even look at this new console with virtually no details as well (specs etc)

It says quite a lot about how bad this year has been for this to be the case and yet everybody still be hyped and interested in the new hardware. It's like a little beacon of happiness in the near distance.

 

[BRiT]

is kookoo land to me.

Don't forget the pre-order lottery to get to pre-order.

 

[iroboto]

Don't forget the pre-order lottery to get to pre-order.

not enough details on this either.

 

[AzBat]

Explain "near". Is that 95%, 75% or 51%...

Spoiler

LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[Deleted member 11852]

not enough details on this either.

It looks pretty stupid, I think that's all you need to know. It won't fly in Europe.

 

[AzBat]

It looks pretty stupid, I think that's all you need to know. It won't fly in Europe.

It won't. It's flying from Japan to the US. LOL

Tommy McClain

 

[iroboto]

It looks pretty stupid, I think that's all you need to know. It won't fly in Europe.

Yea I agree. Well it's literally not flying anywhere else in the world but the US.

For the rest of us:
If the price is high no one needs to worry but at a low enough price point, the sell outs will be fast; These lottery tickets would be a huge win. Being able to win the lottery as well as buying one out at the retail space is ideal in a frenzy state. One of your friends will need it even if you don't because I very much doubt all your friends are equally committed to day 1 purchases.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I guess it’s a very Apple thing?

The differentce is, Apple aren't dropping hints about their new hardware - with the phones you know they're coming every autumn but Apple aren't teasing people with this. It's just BLAM! - out of the blue - event in two weeks then at the event, they're available for pre-order next week, for delivering the week after.

That's so the opposite of what's happening here.