Old Discussion Thread for all 3 motion controllers

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Shifty Geezer said:
Gosh, $150 after the downgrades too. The prototypes must have looked awfully expensive back then.
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Yea, do you think they're still selling it at a loss or trying to make profit from accessory sales? It would be quite stupid if they were.

Alkohallick said:
While i agree that its priced to high, im not so sure it will matter. All of MS accessories are over priced and they still seem to sell. People will buy this thing up due to the massive amount of advertising MS is going to be doing.
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I disagree, none of the 360 owners I know have ever bought a 360 accessory other than controllers and the wireless racing wheel.

MS has an infuriating habit of eye-gouging for accessories like the ridiculous HDD or wireless adapter pricing. I sincerely hope they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot and do the same with Natal, their goal should be to entice as many 360 owners as possible to upgrade to Natal.

Surely, the hardware can't cost $150 can it? Do we have anything similar to compare it to?

Also, with the bundles, we're probably going to see some sort of hardware/form factor revision for the Natal launch, which may the increase in prices easier to swallow.
 
Now MCV is saying the 149 rumor is correct as well.

Really out of left field there.

Really have to wonder at MS strategy if this is true. Will they pack it in all SKU or no? Will they leave the current SKU's for the hardcore, and just introduce Natal+Arcade at 299? What about a Natal SKU with a hard drive? What about the fact the non-Natal SKU's (if indeed they remain) are long overdue for a price cut anyway? Natal will look even worse if the non Natal 360 prices drop to 149/249, as they should.

My gut says that this isn't true still. They come out at $69 or so at E3 and we laugh at this.

The only justification for this is if MS thinks demand will be really high.
 
Eye of Judgment + PS Eye was $70.

I think PSEye alone was $40.

The key differences are:
Sony treated PSEye like a one-off thing (just like PSP !). Microsoft sees Natal as its future platform.

Sony sells hardware, but MS sells software.

So I expect Natal to be packaged/perceived very differently from PSEye.
 
patsu said:
Eye of Judgment + PS Eye was $70.

I think PSEye alone was $40.

The key differences are:
Sony treated PSEye like a one-off thing (just like PSP !). Microsoft sees Natal as its future platform.

Sony sells hardware, but MS sells software.

So I expect Natal to be packaged/perceived very differently from PSEye.
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My question was mostly about the cost of the components. Accessories being accessories, Sony probably made money on the $70/$40 price-point. If you're suggesting that MS is trying to sell Natal as a loss-leader at $150, then did they put the dedicated processor back into it and no one found out?
 
I have no idea whether $150 is a loss to MS.

PSEye is an accessory. There is no official PSEye + PS3 bundle. Sony implemented EyeCreate, Video Chat, Eye of Judgment and a few PSN titles for it; then left it alone. I think EyeToy received more attention from Sony than PSEye (perhaps because of PS3's high price).

It is more fair to compare Playstation Move with Natal.

I still don't see a holistic approach/vision from Sony w.r.t. Playstation Move yet. e.g., Short of PS Move integration in individual titles, what is the final end user usage model ? Hopefully E3 will tell us more.

EDIT: Oh... and they did the awesome draw-my-own-Tank demo, but EyePet watered it down into something non-interesting.


EDIT 2: While it may sound expensive, I don't think $150 is overpriced w.r.t. the values Natal could fetch.

The mental exercise Sony marketing may ask themselves is: What can be done in Playstation Move that is worth $150 ? The BOM cost doesn't always determine the retail price.
 
zed said:
*conspiracy theory* Personally $150 isnt too much theyve gotta cover their costs, the thing is natal is unproven yet.
It could be released and bomb horribly, thus if they were selling at a lost they'ld be hit twice
#1 it bombed
#2 it lost them cash
this way at least #2 doesnt happen, Learning from nintendo :)
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Natal is unproven and they'd want to charge $150 for it? It doesn't quite make sense really. $150 is 3/4 the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU! Charging that much makes #1 more likely! I really can't see them charging more than $99 for it and it does look kind of elegant coming in at $99 standalone, $199 Arcade and $299 Elite or thereabouts.
 
RancidLunchmeat said:
I also don't understand the idea of people putting limits on what they are willing to pay for an experience that they aren't aware of. Either Natal offers an experience you are willing to pay X dollars for, or it doesn't.
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Indeed. Who'd buy $300 of GameCube hardware when you could have brand-spanking new XB360 hardware? Oh, hang on, this Wii thing is fun and worth the money...

If Natal is that good, people will buy it. And if there's high demand, it's better to price high initially then lose revenue. Existing XB360 owners don't have to worry about buying the console, so it's a matter of whether $150 provides a good experience or not. However, it'll have to be a damned good experience! And there is a psychological deterrent in the price that, even if the value if there, people will compare with alternative options ("But I can get x, y, z for $150!").
 
RancidLunchmeat said:
If the estimates were to be true, I don't get how it's such a big deal. How much did that Wii fit balance board thing cost? Or the Tony Hawk skateboard thing?

Weren't they all $100+? So you figure, $100 bundle cost, and a premium bump in price to screw current customers who don't need to buy new consoles because that's how business works.

I also don't understand the idea of people putting limits on what they are willing to pay for an experience that they aren't aware of. Either Natal offers an experience you are willing to pay X dollars for, or it doesn't.

Considering nobody knows what that final experience will be, the idea that people are so willing to put a price tag on that unknown is puzzling.

As Patsu said, if Natal can become an alternative to a controller and a remote and can integrate with things like Netflix and google TV, and become a new way people use their entertainment devices, it'll be worth the price. Hell, have you seen how much some of those Logitech universal remotes cost?
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Yeah, we did pay $600-$700 for the "promise" of some vague future PS3 experience ;)

Anyway, $150 is a bit too much as it is "just" a camera.
I mean, people already have an idea of what a camera periperal costs, and what it can do.

At least current showings of what Natal gaming is, in my opinion, does not quite justify a $100 extra on PSEye or that old xbox360 camera.

Casual gamers might view the price differently: "If Wii motion control and PS3 motion control cost less than half as much, why should I pay three times as much for the xbox360 version of motion contrl? Does it give me that much more... wait, it's just a camera, with Wii and PS3 I get more hardware... so they must be better value"
 
rabidrabbit said:
Yeah, we did pay $600-$700 for the "promise" of some vague future PS3 experience ;)

Anyway, $150 is a bit too much as it is "just" a camera.
I mean, people already have an idea of what a camera periperal costs, and what it can do.

At least current showings of what Natal gaming is, in my opinion, does not quite justify a $100 extra on PSEye or that old xbox360 camera.

Casual gamers might view the price differently: "If Wii motion control and PS3 motion control cost less than half as much, why should I pay three times as much for the xbox360 version of motion contrl? Does it give me that much more... wait, it's just a camera, with Wii and PS3 I get more hardware... so they must be better value"
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But paying that much for the 'future PS3 experience' could be justified at the time by the status of the Playstation brand, the Cell hoo-ha and all the 'realtime' tech demos.

Here, Microsoft is competing with the Move and the firmly established Wii, it doesn't have a track record in motion controls or casual games (or even hardware reliability/quality) and it's arriving near the end of the console lifecycle.

If MS really wants it to be the game changer they proclaim it to be - why are they pricing it out of the market?

It makes no sense - I mean on the one hand you have devs like Joker talking about how much effort and focus MS is pouring into Natal (unlike the Move, which Sony is treating as a side project) and then it seems like they're going to sabotage it's success by trying to make a quick buck on the accessory like with all other overpriced HDDs and adapters they sell.

Look at it from your traditional 360 gamer's perspective - an audience which Natal should see significant uptake in if it's going to gain any traction. I mean it's hardly likely that we'll see a huge casual segment just going to appear and buy Natal en masse like they did with the Wii and MS would be quite naive to think so.

A 360 core gamer would possibly buy Natal if it was say $50-100 - it might be fun with friends over or add some nifty gimmickry to core titles, but $150? Thats 3 new games, I don't think many existing 360 owners are going to jump in - the price is just too prohibitive - especially when the Move is much cheaper with similar functionality and more core gamer appeal (ie.works well with shooters, has a camera and a physical controller with buttons). 360 owners will just think MS is ripping them off again.

MS needs a significant percentage of the existing 360 userbase to buy into Natal and convert their non-360 owning friends AND to also provide impetus for devs to create Natal titles.

For Natal to suceed - it needs to flourish, it can't just be something MS keeps on life support - like 360 camera or Home on PS3. They need to get it into as many hands as possible - the Wii's success is about half due to it's revolutionary controls and half to it's low price - MS would be stupid not to realise that.
 
For Natal to take off at that price, they really need the "killer app"

Balance board had Wii fit (though that got old real quick, imo, and there's not much else that supports it, but it was new and appealing then. Nothing else like existed in the market.

We'll see at E3 what MS has for Natal, until then I remain very sceptical.
 
You know, the killer app is going to have to be insanely killer. EyeToy had that killer app that wowed people and was the first major breakthrough in Mum-and-Granny family gaming. It sold to less than 10% of the install base in the end (although I guess more than that in Europe where it was virtually isolated to). Motion gaming of that ilk won't be as ground-breaking as EyeToy was, with a peripheral that costs a heck of a lot more. Adoption in those circumstances must be expected to be low (under 10%). To get significant adoption and actual create a viable platform, MS will need lots of buyers, which will need some outstanding, world-changing software. I hope they're well prepared for E3!
 
(((interference))) said:
Yea, do you think they're still selling it at a loss or trying to make profit from accessory sales? It would be quite stupid if they were.




I disagree, none of the 360 owners I know have ever bought a 360 accessory other than controllers and the wireless racing wheel.

MS has an infuriating habit of eye-gouging for accessories like the ridiculous HDD or wireless adapter pricing. I sincerely hope they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot and do the same with Natal, their goal should be to entice as many 360 owners as possible to upgrade to Natal.

Surely, the hardware can't cost $150 can it? Do we have anything similar to compare it to?

Also, with the bundles, we're probably going to see some sort of hardware/form factor revision for the Natal launch, which may the increase in prices easier to swallow.
Click to expand...

Yeah but thats you, even though there are no numbers out to quote, I'm almost positive that despite the high prices the masses have bought MS accessories by the dozens. Don't forget that uninformed moms and dads will buy jr almost anything at any price to keep him happy.

On another note -I think with the recent (past 4-5 years) high prices in the gaming industry the masses (read-not you and me)have come to expect prices to be high and don't mind paying for that enjoyment.
 
Squilliam said:
Natal is unproven and they'd want to charge $150 for it? It doesn't quite make sense really. $150 is 3/4 the price of the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU! Charging that much makes #1 more likely! I really can't see them charging more than $99 for it and it does look kind of elegant coming in at $99 standalone, $199 Arcade and $299 Elite or thereabouts.
Click to expand...
conspiracy theory (well Ive bookmarked this post) to announce when national does do what I say that somehow of other the conspiracy came true!!!
Sure the higher the price the more likely it will bomb, but selling under what it costs to make is guaranteed to lose money for MS everytime, I think shifty said look at the wii, it was (+ still is) overpriced but sold gangbusters, if its attractive enuf ppl will buy it price is only a minor consideration
 
Good then the Move wasn't named Arc, as rumoured earlier.
Wave and Arc, they'd been too similar.
Move and Wave are kinda similar too.

Don't like the name, Wave doesn't really say nothing about the device or it's functionality. I think Natal would be better as a kind of "abstract" name.
 
Doesnt sound too bad. Wave as in 'new wave' the latest fad, and wave as in a happy greeting. They would have been better off with Move but Sony nabbed that!
 
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