MS only to ship 4.5-5.5 million by June 2006

[Qroach]

Sega consoles carried Sega brand.

You could say that Sega's name is a brand just like Nintendo's name was at one point. however, sega's name as a brand was not effective in selling the sega staturn or dreamcast. If sega stuck with the name "genesis" they probably would have kept a strong brand name.

Playstation is a Sony's product, it carries Sony brand so is Xbox is a MS product thus it carries Microsoft as its primary brand name. Large company that covers alot of different products normally have secondary trademark/brand, to differentiate their different product line. Like Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office etc.

You're looking at it the wrong way IMO. Both sony and MS have made a concious effort to establish a NEW brand with thier consoles and not rely on the name SONY or Microsoft. With sony, the brand is "Playstation" and with microsft the brand is "Xbox". have a look at your consoles, you will notice both sony and microsft names are off to the side, far away from the playstation logo and xbox name.

Also watch commercials for either company, they make the name playstation & xbox the focus and not the name Sony and Microsoft.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Playstation is a "Brand" not a franchise. Xbox is a brand. Sega didn't have a brand they carried across from console to console.

Though going off track, how do you define the difference? Officail a franchise is a you license off to other people to use. In console games it seems to be applied to any IP that gets sequels. In the first (true) definition Halo isn't a franchise. In in the second common definition PS seems as much a franchise with seuqles as Halo.

 

[Powderkeg]

Phil

There is so much that you are not taking into consideration when comparing the 360 to the Dreamcast it's not even funny. It makes you look pretty bad.

I mean, let's do a reality check.

#1. The DC was the 3rd major failed system in a row for Sega. The 32X didn't even last a year before the Saturn replaced it, and the Saturn was pretty much a flop barely breaking the 10 million mark. (Less than half the Xbox userbase)

#2. The DC totally lacked EA support. You cannot discount how much not having the largest publisher in the world support your system hurts.

#3. The DC lacked the very desirable DVD movie playback support, which had just overtaken VHS in market demand.

#4. Sega was in major financial problems prior to the DC's release. Pretty much everyone knew they were close to failing which is why MS tried to buy them out before making the Xbox.


OK, unlike the DC, the 360 is building off a success, not 2 previous failures. People are much more willing to buy the 360, and developers are much more likely to support the 360 because the Xbox was a success.

The 360 is launching with major EA support. Next-gen Madden alone is a bigger selling point than all DC launch titles combined before the DC actually launched.

BluRay is definitely no where near the high demand of DVD in 2000, and won't be for many years to come.

And MS has enough money to buy Nintendo outright and still have cash left over, or to pay off almost 70% of Sony's debt without emptying their surplus cash supply.

The two are simply not comparable, and to even suggest they are shows how little you know of Sega and the dreamcast.

 

[mckmas8808]

You're looking at it the wrong way IMO. Both sony and MS have made a concious effort to establish a NEW brand with thier consoles and not rely on the name SONY or Microsoft. With sony, the brand is "Playstation" and with microsft the brand is "Xbox". have a look at your consoles, you will notice both sony and microsft names are off to the side, far away from the playstation logo and xbox name.

Also watch commercials for either company, they make the name playstation & xbox the focus and not the name Sony and Microsoft.

We don't agree much, but I agree with you here. Both Sony and MS did a smart thing and named their video game systems using an off name (i.e. Playstation and Xbox). Come to think about it maybe Sega should have stuck with Genesis. I to this day think that the Playstation name alone could sell more units because off its name than the Xbox could due to its games.

 

[Carl B]

Powderkeg you clearly have no idea what kind of debt Sony is in - Microsoft could easily pay off ALL the debt and have plenty left over. I think you're confusing liabilities for debt. (They have a financial services/insurance business for god's sake, of course they have liabilities)

As for Nintendo, Nintendo would simply refuse to be bought. It would have to be the most hostile of hostile takeovers for Microsoft to get a hold of them.

All of that aside however, though I don't disagree that XBox is a 'success' (though similar to Sega's consoles, not financially) and that Saturn and Dreamcast were failures, I'm pretty confident in saying that if Dreamcast had stayed in it, their losses for the gen would have been a lot lower than MS', and their console sales probably a fair deal higher in the end.

The fact that a number of XBox owners count themselves among the Sega disaffected alone is a very telling sign of that.

 

[Thegameman]

Phil

There is so much that you are not taking into consideration when comparing the 360 to the Dreamcast it's not even funny. It makes you look pretty bad.

I mean, let's do a reality check.

#1. The DC was the 3rd major failed system in a row for Sega. The 32X didn't even last a year before the Saturn replaced it, and the Saturn was pretty much a flop barely breaking the 10 million mark. (Less than half the Xbox userbase)

#2. The DC totally lacked EA support. You cannot discount how much not having the largest publisher in the world support your system hurts.

#3. The DC lacked the very desirable DVD movie playback support, which had just overtaken VHS in market demand.

#4. Sega was in major financial problems prior to the DC's release. Pretty much everyone knew they were close to failing which is why MS tried to buy them out before making the Xbox.


OK, unlike the DC, the 360 is building off a success, not 2 previous failures. People are much more willing to buy the 360, and developers are much more likely to support the 360 because the Xbox was a success.

The 360 is launching with major EA support. Next-gen Madden alone is a bigger selling point than all DC launch titles combined before the DC actually launched.

BluRay is definitely no where near the high demand of DVD in 2000, and won't be for many years to come.

And MS has enough money to buy Nintendo outright and still have cash left over, or to pay off almost 70% of Sony's debt without emptying their surplus cash supply.

The two are simply not comparable, and to even suggest they are shows how little you know of Sega and the dreamcast.

The saturn din't sell half of what the xbox sold,but how is that diferent from the xbox seling little over a quart of what the PS2 sold and the xbox did had EA suport.


The xbox floped hard as well on sales and it had alot bigger suport than the DC had,whith companys like EA,Namco,Konami,Capcom and many others that help make the PS what it is today,still floped hard sales wise when you compare it to the PS2.


The xbox also lacked DVD playback out of the box,you had to buy aditional hardware to make it work.


That one is true Sega did had major problems,but like other member already say finalcial streth din't mean much on the PS2 vs Xbox battle.


The xbox 360 is a succesor of a system that failed to capture the market,in fact when you compare the PS2 to xbox number you see clearly that something whent very wrong for MS,the PS2 90 million the xbox 22 is not even close,whit and advantage of just 20 months,what sony had by that time 20 million cconsoles sold world wide.


Still the PS2 sold 70 more million after the xbox launch and MS only 22 million.


People don't see them as equal.

 

[Powderkeg]

Powderkeg you clearly have no idea what kind of debt Sony is in - Microsoft could easily pay off ALL the debt and have plenty left over. I think you're confusing liabilities for debt. (They have a financial services/insurance business for god's sake, of course they have liabilities)

They have over $60 billion in debt.

As for Nintendo, Nintendo would simply refuse to be bought. It would have to be the most hostile of hostile takeovers for Microsoft to get a hold of them.

I didn't mean to suggest there was a possibility of MS buying them out, only to say they had enough cash to do it. I've got enough cash to quit my job and retire like a prince in some poverty stricken 3rd world country, but that doesn't mean I'm turning in my 2 weeks notice any time soon.

 

[Platon]

The saturn din't sell half of what the xbox sold,but how is that diferent from the xbox seling little over a quart of what the PS2 sold and the xbox did had EA suport.


The xbox floped hard as well on sales and it had alot bigger suport than the DC had,whith companys like EA,Namco,Konami,Capcom and many others that help make the PS what it is today,still floped hard sales wise when you compare it to the PS2.


The xbox also lacked DVD playback out of the box,you had to buy aditional hardware to make it work.


That one is true Sega did had major problems,but like other member already say finalcial streth din't mean much on the PS2 vs Xbox battle.


The xbox 360 is a succesor of a system that failed to capture the market,in fact when you compare the PS2 to xbox number you see clearly that something whent very wrong for MS,the PS2 90 million the xbox 22 is not even close,whit and advantage of just 20 months,what sony had by that time 20 million cconsoles sold world wide.


Still the PS2 sold 70 more million after the xbox launch and MS only 22 million.


People don't see them as equal.

But you have to consider that the xbox came from nowhere. Why should people buy it? Why should they trust MS? How long is it going to last? WIll be it be a failure like dreamcast? PS2 was the safe bet and had established franshices. Comming as a newcommer with no backing what so ever into the console arena, and selling more than than Nintendo and 25% of Sony, I don't think that that is a small thing...

 

[Carl B]

They have over $60 billion in debt.

No, they don't. They have $60 billion in liabilities.

Here is their balance sheet: Link

I think you're a little confused when it comes to financials - thus your confusion with the whole proxy/disclosure thing in that other thread.

Here is CitiGroup's balance sheet as well, for you to wrap your head around. I picked a financial services pure play to help you out: Link

But who knows, maybe you think CitiGroup has $1.3 trillion dollars of debt.

 

[London Geezer]

But you have to consider that the xbox came from nowhere. Why should people buy it? Why should they trust MS? How long is it going to last? WIll be it be a failure like dreamcast? PS2 was the safe bet and had established franshices. Comming as a newcommer with no backing what so ever into the console arena, and selling more than than Nintendo and 25% of Sony, I don't think that that is a small thing...

PS1 also came out from nowhere, but things worked out rather differently didn't they...

 

[Powderkeg]

The saturn din't sell half of what the xbox sold,but how is that diferent from the xbox seling little over a quart of what the PS2 sold and the xbox did had EA suport.

The Saturn sold less than 10 million units total, and that is less than half of the Xbox userbase.

And how is the Xbox vs. PS2 sales at all relevent to my comments or points?

The xbox floped hard as well on sales and it had alot bigger suport than the DC had,whith companys like EA,Namco,Konami,Capcom and many others that help make the PS what it is today,still floped hard sales wise when you compare it to the PS2.

I like your last sentence, because it says it all. WHEN COMPARED TO THE PS@.

Well, don't compare it to the PS2. Compare it to MS's console userbase from the previous generation, which was ZERO. Going from ZERO to 22+ million is a success.

Going from 35+ million down to less than 10 million like Sega did was a failure. If you don't see the difference then try removing the ****** sunglasses.

The xbox also lacked DVD playback out of the box,you had to buy aditional hardware to make it work.

It was a very desirable option that the DC didn't have at all.

That one is true Sega did had major problems,but like other member already say finalcial streth din't mean much on the PS2 vs Xbox battle.

Sure it did. Financial strength is what made the Xbox last 4 years and made sure the 360 was a reality. do you think MS would have persued the 360 project if they were in as bad of a financial position as Sega was in 2008? Not a chance.

The xbox 360 is a succesor of a system that failed to capture the market,in fact when you compare the PS2 to xbox number you see clearly that something whent very wrong for MS,the PS2 90 million the xbox 22 is not even close,whit and advantage of just 20 months,what sony had by that time 20 million cconsoles sold world wide.

And there are a million reasons for that, most of which you obviously are ignorant of.

When the Xbox launched it had absolutely no previous userbase. Developers didn't support it because they didn't know how well it would see, and consumers didn't support it because the rumor was Nintendo and Sony would going to flatten them and MS would drop out of the console race.

Clearly neither of those problems exist now. Developers are giving the 360 tons of support (Even giving the 360 new versions of formerly Playstation exclusive titles) and consumers have absolutely no fears about MS staying around or getting good games.

The first year of the PS2 it enjoyed success based off the Playstation. The first 2 years of the Xbox MS had to struggle and fight to make a dent in the market because they were the great unknown.



And I shouldn't have to explain the implications of the 9-11 terrorist attacks only 2 months before the Xbox launch and how that effected consumer confidence and sales.


I'm not saying the Xbox 360 is going to outsell the PS3 by the end of next-gen, but I think even implying the 360 is another Dreamcast is beyond ignorant. It's just plain dumb.

 

[one]

Well, don't compare it to the PS2. Compare it to MS's console userbase from the previous generation, which was ZERO. Going from ZERO to 22+ million is a success.

Success with no profit at all? That's old "Xbox was a huge 3-billion-dollar PR campaign" bullshit. It's possible only for MS. If an ordinary company does that, it's out of market already. Therefore, what you say is "everything MS does becomes automatically a success". It's not a great success story of bulidinng up from zero, it's a zero-divide exception with a money blackhole. Dev companies surely love this situation, cuz Uncle Bill gives them huge allowances each year and "energize the market with tremendous synergy effect" Even SCE and Nintendo may be pleased to be able to spend less R&D incentives for third parties.

 

[avaya]

The Xbox project was sold to thh MS top brass as a long-term vision. They expected to lose money with their first entrance, they hope this will get them the mindshare.

If 360 fails to return on the investment, then they've got problems. Microsoft hasn't reached where it is today by continuing with unsuccessful projects. Xbox Execs have promised Gates & Ballmer that they should cover the time prefernce cost of capital with 360.

 

[mckmas8808]

But you have to consider that the xbox came from nowhere. Why should people buy it? Why should they trust MS? How long is it going to last? WIll be it be a failure like dreamcast? PS2 was the safe bet and had established franshices. Comming as a newcommer with no backing what so ever into the console arena, and selling more than than Nintendo and 25% of Sony, I don't think that that is a small thing...

Why should have people trusted Sony with the PSone? They also came from nowhere. Why did people even buy it? It's because Sony had and still has to this day a better videogame business model than MS does that's why. Nintendo and Sega had established franshices, yet Sony still blew pasted them on their first try at the video game industry. Sony dominated on their first try, why couldn't MS?

 

[scooby_dooby]

PSOne took off because of it's massive amounts of 3rd party support.

It had many more games than N64, and it picked up huge franchises like FF. This was due to Nintendo being overly strict, and PS adopting the cheaper, larger CD format. Sony had enough advantages they were able to convince developers to give them support.

XBOX never had any of these advantages, I don't know how anyone could expect it to duplicate PS1's success, 2 different situations at 2 different points in time. When it launched most of it's games were crap from MGS, it had virtually no 3rd party support, but it still went on to be a major success.

If you watch TV in the US now, you see an XBOX as often as a PS2 on shows like pimp-my-ride and other popular programs. It's now an established, respected brand name.

As far as developer support compared to XBOX1, this time around it's night and day, X360 has an absolute TON of 3rd part support, so therefore they wil have many games, therefore the console will sell extremely well.

 

[avaya]

PSOne took off because of it's massive amounts of 3rd party support.

It had many more games than N64, and it picked up huge franchises like FF. This was due to Nintendo being overly strict, and PS adopting the cheaper, larger CD format. Sony had enough advantages they were able to convince developers to give them support.

XBOX never had any of these advantages, I don't know how anyone could expect it to duplicate PS1's success, 2 different situations at 2 different points in time. When it launched most of it's games were crap from MGS, it had virtually no 3rd party support, but it still went on to be a major success.

If you watch TV in the US now, you see an XBOX as often as a PS2 on shows like pimp-my-ride and other popular programs. It's now an established, respected brand name.

As far as developer support compared to XBOX1, this time around it's night and day, X360 has an absolute TON of 3rd part support, so therefore they wil have many games, therefore the console will sell extremely well.

PS1's success is not down to developer support alone.

There were many critical elements:

-N64 being delayed time and again
-Nintendo adopting catridges
-Nintendo subsequently alienating Squaresoft
-Sega absolutely shooting itself in the foot with Saturn.

Finally, last but not least, Sony's brand name in the living room. Back then people would still pay that bit more for a Sony product. From simple association alone people trusted Sony products in the living room space. Microsoft never had that with Xbox, is the 360 going to change that? I don't know.

 

[scooby_dooby]

PS1's success is not down to developer support alone.

There were many critical elements:

-N64 being delayed time and again
-Nintendo adopting catridges
-Nintendo subsequently alienating Squaresoft
-Sega absolutely shooting itself in the foot with Saturn.

Finally, last but not least, Sony's brand name in the living room. Back then people would still pay that bit more for a Sony product. From simple association alone people trusted Sony products in the living room space. Microsoft never had that with Xbox, is the 360 going to change that? I don't know.

2 out of 4 of those relate directly to developer support. Adopting cartridges meant more expensive games to publish and less room for developers, and Nintendo's loss of SE is obviously a gain for Sony's 3rd party support.

I think PS1's massive success was due entirely to it's game library. Without such an overwhelming game library it would not have totally obliterated Nintendo and Sega.

The GFX were better on N64, and it had the Nintendo brand name, but what happened? PS1 just had WAY more games.

 

[one]

When it launched most of it's games were crap from MGS, it had virtually no 3rd party support, but it still went on to be a major success.

The fact is, in addition to Western PC developers, even among Japanese companies, SEGA, Namco, Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, Koei, From Software, all of them and others pronouced their support for Xbox in 2001 before the launch.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think PS1's massive success was due entirely to it's game library. Without such an overwhelming game library it would not have totally obliterated Nintendo and Sega.

The GFX were better on N64, and it had the Nintendo brand name, but what happened? PS1 just had WAY more games.

And how does that change now? Sony still has most of those advantages if you ask me. You're 100% correct on why the PSone blow up fast. And you actually supported my point. Before the PSone, Sega Saturn, and N64 came out did people expect Sony to dominate? Most didn't. Those things that you mentioned like Sony going with CDs and Nintendo being stricted is hindsight 20 20. The important things to watch for next-gen could be this.

1. Nintendo's new controller could alienate 3rd party devs, which could result in less games being made for the system. Which would obviously mean less hardware sales.

2. Nintendo hiding so much information from gamers and developers in relation to the PS3 and Xbox360 could hurt them in the long run.

3. If the Revolution doesn't have High Definition support I guess you can see the obvious loss here.

4. MS not going with a HD media disc could hurt games in the long run. Especially if Blu-ray takes off like Sony and others want and need it to.

5. MS's horrible marketing skills compared to Sony could hurt the 360's future success. Everyone knows that Sony is the best at marketing so far.

6. MS's lack of Japanese support from gamers is also an obvious loss and can hurt the 360's future.

7. If Sony doesn't fix its stupid a$$ online support this is the biggest loss that the PS3 will have next-gen imho. Nintendo has a great plan for next-gen and MS already had a great one this gen.

8. Sony can't price itself out of the market. This one I think won't happen at all though.

9. Sony needs to be in all territories buy next October of 2006. If not this could be a problem for the PS3.


Now those are all the potential problems for each next-gen console imo that I can think of right now. As you can see everybody has these holes that need to be filled in some way. Nobody has a clean slate. And it has been this way for decades. Sony never had anything handed to them. Sony faced these same pot holes in the past and has surpassed them. For some reason the competitors have not.

Can any of you think of any other possible pot holes for these guys?

 

[fireshot]

Did i stumble wrongly into gamefaqs novice forums? MS in the same "sticky" situation as Sega DC was?

You keep your opinions that MS is no more a threat than a dying Sega. not much we can do after those points flew by you.
you do that while we see more publishers and developers confidently pinning on Xbox bigger success.

let the gaming do the talking, and we need some archiving