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

[London Geezer]

It's an easy argument...

If people planning to purchase PS5 told the truth and you polled them would they rather have the extra 2TF or the faster SSD, and their preference would actually get implemented, there would be zero contest the TF would win by a landslide. Zero doubt in my mind. But now everything is set in stone, So everybody goes to their corners and fights with what they have.

In reality, most “people” would go “what’s a teraflop”, choose what will play their favourite games and move on.

I also would question how an 18% difference in raw compute power is earth-shattering but a 100% difference in SSD speed is nothing?

If anything, I’d be more excited about the rather large gap in RAM bandwidth.

 

[BRiT]

I also would question how an 18% difference in raw compute power is earth-shattering but a 100% difference in SSD speed is nothing?

If anything, I’d be more excited about the rather large gap in RAM bandwidth.

It's all relative levels, having a 125x improvement over current systems compared to a 250x improvement over current systems, so some may feel the 125x is enough of a jump.

Do you mean the 560 GB/s vs 448 GB/s ram bandwidth gap of 25%, or do you mean PS5 over 4Pro bandwidth?

 

[London Geezer]

It's all relative levels, having a 125x improvement over current systems compared to a 250x improvement over current systems, so some may feel the 125x is enough of a jump.

Do you mean the 560 GB/s vs 448 GB/s ram bandwidth gap of 25%, or do you mean PS5 over 4Pro bandwidth?

I mean X to PS5.

It is all relative, what I’m questioning is this narrative that 18% more of something (TFLOPS) is of the utmost importance, but 100% of something else (SSD) that is also quite important is completely dismissed as irrelevant.

As you say, and even more importantly, when we compare to previous generations this TFLOP gap is even more marginal compared to the rest of the system.

 

[Barrabas]

In reality, most “people” would go “what’s a teraflop”, choose what will play their favourite games and move on.

I also would question how an 18% difference in raw compute power is earth-shattering but a 100% difference in SSD speed is nothing?

I agree, tech specs awareness is not widespread. If anything inside tech related I believe SSD speed would have a greater marketing impact since more people now are used to the big difference in loading on PC's and laptops. Since awareness of this, it seems that newer and faster generation of SSD's are important for making decision in the PC marked and I also guess it will make an impact on choosing console. I believe controller features will make an impact in marketing, because that is what you are going to have in the hands all the time while gaming. I also think a focus on advancement in positional audio will be used extensively so we will (hopefully) get that in to as many games as possible.

 

[Nesh]

In reality, most “people” would go “what’s a teraflop”, choose what will play their favourite games and move on.

I also would question how an 18% difference in raw compute power is earth-shattering but a 100% difference in SSD speed is nothing?

If anything, I’d be more excited about the rather large gap in RAM bandwidth.

Maybe MS has a lot more under it's sleeve that improves efficiency even further. That 100% speed difference in SSD might provide improvements that arent as perceived compared to MS's solution (miliseconds or a couple of seconds of difference are barely noticeable by the average user)

The way I see the PS5 specs with my limited knowledge, it is more likely that it will hit bottlenecks than MS.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

IIf people planning to purchase PS5 told the truth and you polled them would they rather have the extra 2TF or the faster SSD, and their preference would actually get implemented, there would be zero contest the TF would win by a landslide. Zero doubt in my mind. But now everything is set in stone, So everybody goes to their corners and fights with what they have.

You say this because you favour teraflops, I favour less time loading. if you rate performance over anything else, why on earth did you by an Xbox One instead of a PS4 given the 1.2Tf vs 1.8Tf disparity was known months before pre-orders even began? I don't mean this to attack you but you have consistently held the view that performance sells but you knowingly bought into the weaker console ecosystem 6-7 years ago.

If Performance was king, nobody - NOBODY - would have bought an Xbox at all. The fact that tens of millions did should tell you that maximum theoretical performance isn't the be all and end all consideration. Hence, marketing.

 

[goonergaz]

You say this because you favour teraflops, I favour less time loading. if you rate performance over anything else, why on earth did you by an Xbox One instead of a PS4 given the 1.2Tf vs 1.8Tf disparity was known months before pre-orders even began? I don't mean this to attack you but you have consistently held the view that performance sells but you knowingly bought into the weaker console ecosystem 6-7 years ago.

If Performance was king, nobody - NOBODY - would have bought an Xbox at all. The fact that tens of millions did should tell you that maximum theoretical performance isn't the be all and end all consideration. Hence, marketing.

It is funny how power is so important to those who bought the weaker machine last gen. I have similar conversations with my mate who is telling me ‘devs reporting XSX is significantly better’ and Velocity Architecture boosts SSD to 14.4GB/s so hardly any advantage to PS5 if any.

 

[Nesh]

It is funny how power is so important to those who bought the weaker machine last gen. I have similar conversations with my mate who is telling me ‘devs reporting XSX is significantly better’ and Velocity Architecture boosts SSD to 14.4GB/s so hardly any advantage to PS5 if any.

Does he really have that info or are we back to the 90s console wars?

 

[Jay]

So do you think people can see the difference between for example a locked 30 vs locked 60 ? what about a fluctuating fps vs 60 locked or 90 vs 60 and so on and so forth? The peformcne difference between the consoles will come out in different ways.

Are you suggesting one console will be 30 and the other 60? Or 60 and 90?

In regards to nothing left on the table, I don't agree. It used to happen but you can see from many of the ports that devs push the xbox one x further than the ps4 pro and both get pushed further than the xbox one and ps4. Heck even at launch of the xbox one and ps4 they made sure the ps4 performed and let it run higher res and better frame rates than the xbox one.

I would say most of the difference has been inline with the specs, apart from the times when 1X has worse framerate, or no differences at all.
There has been a fair few examples, of both those situations.

If people planning to purchase PS5 told the truth and you polled them would they rather have the extra 2TF or the faster SSD, and their preference would actually get implemented, there would be zero contest the TF would win by a landslide. Zero doubt in my mind. But now everything is set in stone, So everybody goes to their corners and fights with what they have.

And yet as someone who plans to buy xbox not ps, I've said I would give up some power for ssd speed.
So I'm not too sure what to make of this post apart from that's just your view.

I think you can market speed just as well as power as long as everything is in the same ballpark.
Apart from people who watch DF, I suspect speed will be easier to demonstrate, don't need framegraphs, pixel counting, in depth analysis of feature differences.

I think both are good bullet points, but won't be enough in itself to sell beyond people who was interested in that platform anyway.

 

[BRiT]

It is funny how power is so important to those who bought

Ita funny how power is so important to those who bought the more powerful console last gen except now they say it doesnt matter for nextgen.

People are funny in their justifications.

In reality it isn't about console A vs B, it's about having the best version of Brand A and Brand B as a choice. Outside of financial concerns, it's not like someone is going to opt for a PS4 instead of a PS5.

 

[Jay]

In reality it isn't about console A vs B, it's about having the best version of Brand A and Brand B as a choice. Outside of financial concerns, it's not like someone is going to opt for a PS4 instead of a PS5.

This is why i said that for most people what is more important will be dependent on the platform they was already intrested in buying.

Loading times is more important than resolution to me, yet I'm still planning on getting Xbox. Because I value things like gamepass even more (got 3 years stacked).
I can also see the otherside if you value resolution more.
My point is that for me, ssd and resolution is enough in eachothers ballpark to make a person think I'm fine with that, not much of a difference.

 

[RobertR1]

In reality, most “people” would go “what’s a teraflop”, choose what will play their favourite games and move on.
.

This is not true in my experience for the US mindset. People want to know they have the "best" if they would fail a double blind test. It's part of the competitive psychology we grow up in the US.

 

[Jay]

This is not true in my experience for the US mindset. People want to know they have the "best" if they would fail a double blind test. It's part of the competitive psychology we grow up in the US.

Does that overide things like brand loyalty over there?
Also I'm sure both can claim to be the best. One power the other speed.
Easy to market both.

 

[RobertR1]

Does that overide things like brand loyalty over there?
Also I'm sure both can claim to be the best. One power the other speed.
Easy to market both.

Brand loyalty i found to be much stronger in the EU (now living in UK) and Asian regions.

While we get more loud and boastful about what we have in the US, i found the other regions more reluctant to change. This carries over into business also. People are much more quick to adopt new technologies in the US where as, the more east you go, the more resistance you find to change/status quo.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is not true in my experience for the US mindset. People want to know they have the "best" if they would fail a double blind test. It's part of the competitive psychology we grow up in the US.

As DSoup observed, if that's really the case, why did XB1 sell any amount at all?

 

[RobertR1]

As DSoup observed, if that's really the case, why did XB1 sell any amount at all?

Combination of factors. Bought into the hype and promise (riding the high of previous gen). Friends still in the ecosystem. Remaining Live sub and digital library.

Clearly none of it ultimately did enough to hold interest and tanked in sales performance. Once the X1X was released and it was clearly the better console, a slower road to recovery and reputation was possible.

 

[London Geezer]

Combination of factors. Bought into the hype and promise (riding the high of previous gen). Friends still in the ecosystem. Remaining Live sub and digital library.

Clearly none of it ultimately did enough to hold interest and tanked in sales performance. Once the X1X was released and it was clearly the better console, a slower road to recovery and reputation was possible.

You’ll find that the evidence would prove otherwise. Time and time again things that are not “power” have contributed to a platform’s success or lack of. You literally say it yourself.

 

[RobertR1]

You’ll find that the evidence would prove otherwise. Time and time again things that are not “power” have contributed to a platform’s success or lack of. You literally say it yourself.

The factors weren't strong enough to overcome the real power differences and after the initial sales window, where you can sell any shit on a stick (PS3 launch) the audience quickly dried up. The more powerful console won just like it had the gen before.

 

[London Geezer]

The factors weren't strong enough to overcome the real power differences and after the initial sales window, where you can sell any shit on a stick (PS3 launch) the audience quickly dried up. The more powerful console won just like it had the gen before.

Technically the Wii won that gen (least powerful), and the PS2 the one before (least powerful), so really we can all look at these things with our own goggles and come to different conclusions.

Once again, PS4 did not win this gen because it’s “more powerful”. It won for a variety of reasons, and the fact that the hardware was pretty damn well balanced helped.

If you want to believe that the X will win this generation simply because it is “more powerful”, I think your expectations are misplaced.

And even more importantly, if MS think they can win this gen just by having the “most powerful” platform, without thinking about all the other variables that made PlayStation get where it is today (surprise, it’s not power!), then they are definitely in for a very unpleasant surprise. But I think they do know that, which is great because competition is great for everyone and Sony needs a good spanking.

 

[PSman1700]

Technically the Wii won that gen (least powerful), and the PS2 the one before (least powerful), so really we can all look at these things with our own goggles and come to different conclusions.

But those consoles didn't release at the same time, no idea if that mattered any though. During 6th gen GC was the cheapest yet sold the least, and some argue it was the least powerfull, here on b3d even.

Once again, PS4 did not win this gen because it’s “more powerful”. It won for a variety of reasons, and the fact that the hardware was pretty damn well balanced helped.

If you want to believe that the X will win this generation simply because it is “more powerful”, I think your expectations are misplaced.

And even more importantly, if MS think they can win this gen just by having the “most powerful” platform, without thinking about all the other variables that made PlayStation get where it is today (surprise, it’s not power!), then they are definitely in for a very unpleasant surprise. But I think they do know that, which is great because competition is great for everyone and Sony needs a good spanking.

Yes agree, soley on power doesn't net you a win or even success. I think it's a combination of all things together. It didn't help MS having the weakest system, a 100 dollar higher price tag (for kinect no-one wanted) and a heavy focus on TVTVTV, which ment less resources to gaming focus, which is the reason people buy consoles, games.
It's all things combined, the PS4 had basically all of it, they had half a TF more power, which resulted in games running at a higher res, higher settings, and more stable. They also had the price just right at 399, and a focus on gaming instead of TV, or a kinect.

MS has the more powerfull box this time, there seems to be no useless gimmick like kinect, which also means they can price more competively, finally they seem to have a focus on games again. They sure have a better stance then in 2013, atleast.
Sony has the brand loyality, esp in EU/asia, so they got the wind with them, they have larger margins on doing things wrong.