Power On: The Story of Xbox [Documentary 6 Parts]

[Nesh]

Well we know sega botched the saturn design causing them to loose roughly $100 per system even at the $400 price point which was higher than sony. But in japan that didn't matter as the saturn still out sold the playstation. The real mess up was how difficult it was to program for it vs the playstation. If sega didn't mess up the design they already had the publisher relationships and would have still out sold the playstation.

You can see this kinda replay itself with the ps3 vs the xbox 360. The ps3 was much more expensive and much more difficult to program for while under performing its competition and so it lost massive market share.

Sony got very lucky and was able to thread the needle. Sega came in expensive and under powered while nintendo came in late with expensive carts. If you change either of those it's doubtful the playstation would have done well. nintendo using cd roms for the n64 would have meant FF 7 would have come to the platform maybe by passing the ps1 all together.

history is full of what ifs. For a new company to enter the market it takes a lot of screw ups from the companies already in the market or a huge over whelming force.

We all know that Sony didnt succeed because of luck but because they did everything right with an amazing product

 

[BRiT]

We all know that Sony didnt succeed because of luck but because they did everything right with an amazing product

Maybe a little bit of luck in timing and pricing with how 8 GB came into PS4?

 

[Nesh]

Maybe a little bit of luck in timing and pricing with how 8 GB came into PS4?

I am talking about the PS1.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

We all know that Sony didnt succeed because of luck but because they did everything right with an amazing product

Actually there was some luck involved. If not for Nintendo turning turning down Sony's CD add-on for their console (due to licensing disagreements) then the Sony PlayStation would never exist. Instead we'd have had a Nintendo PlayStation CD add-on to a Nintendo console.

Because of that Sony decided to make their own console which became the Sony PlayStation.

Regards,
SB

 

[Nesh]

Actually there was some luck involved. If not for Nintendo turning turning down Sony's CD add-on for their console (due to licensing disagreements) then the Sony PlayStation would never exist. Instead we'd have had a Nintendo PlayStation CD add-on to a Nintendo console.

Because of that Sony decided to make their own console which became the Sony PlayStation.

Regards,
SB

I agree. That contributed to why Sony participated but not why they succeeded when they did participate though.

 

[orangpelupa]

The documentary is missing crucial things in a bunch of stuff. Like how they finally fixed the rrod? They only say they found the cause but what was the fix?

There's also a bunch of info that was blabbered in an interview (hosted by Reggie, ex Nintendo ceo) that was not in the documentary.

But overall it was nice to see a documentary from the company itself able to discuss things that are considered bad things, not just the good.

They even openly admit that the good decisions / directions that are for gamers' interests are able to be made reality because it also aligns with company's interest. And the struggle to make higher ups understand those as Important company interest

 

[BRiT]

New The documentary is missing crucial things in a bunch of stuff. Like how they finally fixed the rrod? They only say they found the cause but what was the fix?

The cause was the lead-free solder. This meant it was less flexible so more fragile or cracked solder joints. They had several workarounds in place, such as better clamping styles, larger direct fan, higher capacity cooling heatsinks, and newer smaller cooler running chips.

 

[orangpelupa]

The cause was the lead-free solder. This meant it was less flexible so more fragile or cracked solder joints. They had several workarounds in place, such as better clamping styles, larger direct fan,, higher capacity cooling heatsinks, and newer smaller cooler running chips.

IIRC that was the hiphothesis from various experts (and some even provides xray of the solder joints). But Microsoft never officially say anything what the fix was.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Finally watching this and I find it interesting that there's an interesting parallel between PS and Xbox.

Nintendo is the main reason the PlayStation exists. If Nintendo didn't decide not to use Sony's CD-ROM add on for the Nintendo console, then PlayStation never would have gotten made.

But then Sony is the main reason that the Xbox exists. If Sony didn't make the claim that PlayStation 2 would wipeout desktop PCs, then Bill Gates likely never would have approved the Xbox and Xbox would never have gotten made.

Regards,
SB

 

[Theeoo]

I don't think Sony will be too unhappy with the current state of the market. Release a PS4 super slim on 7nm in say a years time, and they could probably easily surpass PS2 sales with sales from the long tail if they wanted to, while the PS5 hack doesn't appear to be as bad the PS3 one (yet) from what I've read.

 

[Globalisateur]

I don't think Sony will be too unhappy with the current state of the market. Release a PS4 super slim on 7nm in say a years time, and they could easily surpass PS2 sales with sales from the long tail, while the PS5 hack doesn't appear to be as bad the PS3 one (yet) from what I've read.

I don't think that'll happen soon. They probably don't want to sell people 7nm PS4s. Why would they want to sell people $200 7nm consoles when they can instead use the precious 7nm TSMC allocation and sell them 500$ 7nm consoles while expecting even more from 80€ software? They'll sell whatever they manage to produce for years to come anyway and the only reason they still produce PS4s (and not many of them) is probably because that production isn't slowing PS5 one.

And with $400 DE PS5 they'll make even more money in the end...

 

[see colon]

Nintendo is the main reason the PlayStation exists. If Nintendo didn't decide not to use Sony's CD-ROM add on for the Nintendo console, then PlayStation never would have gotten made.

After Nintendo, Sony tried to team up with Sega. SOA was on board, but Japan turned it down.
Source

"Sega of America and Sony were both convinced that the next platform had to use optical discs. We had been working on this CD-ROM attachment to the Genesis, which we knew really wasn’t adequate, but it taught us how to make games on this format," said Kalinske. "We had the Sony guys and our engineers in the United States come up with specs for what this next optical-based hardware system would be. And with these specs, Olafsson, Schulhof and I went to Japan, and we met with Sony’s Ken Kutaragi. He said it was a great idea, and as we all lose money on hardware, let's jointly market a single system – the Sega/Sony hardware system – and whatever loss we make, we split that loss."

Kalinske took his proposal to Sega's Board of Directors, who promptly vetoed the idea.

"Next, we went to [Sega president] Nakayama and the Board at Sega, and they basically turned me down. They said, 'that’s a stupid idea, Sony doesn’t know how to make hardware. They don’t know how to make software either. Why would we want to do this?' That is what caused the division between Sega and Sony and caused Sony to become our competitor and launch its own hardware platform."

Bolded a quote that didn't age well.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Finally watching this and I find it interesting that there's an interesting parallel between PS and Xbox. Nintendo is the main reason the PlayStation exists. If Nintendo didn't decide not to use Sony's CD-ROM add on for the Nintendo console, then PlayStation never would have gotten made.

The motivations were different. Sony's motivation was simply revenge on Nintendo. Microsoft's motivation was largely FOMO and the concern PlayStation would move out of video games.

But then Sony is the main reason that the Xbox exists. If Sony didn't make the claim that PlayStation 2 would wipeout desktop PCs, then Bill Gates likely never would have approved the Xbox and Xbox would never have gotten made.

I've never seen Sony never made any such a claim. From the VentureBeat article (and several published books) citing senior Microsoft people at the time:

Gates had seen it coming. After his meeting with Sony’s Idei, Gates returned to Redmond, telling his people that Sony wanted the PS 2 to compete with the PC, that it was going to be more than a TV set-top or game box: It was going to be a threat to Microsoft’s Windows franchise. (Gates recalled the meeting with Idei as amiable.)

You must factor in that there is common reoccurring observation of young Bill Gates across the industry in that his recollection of many meetings is significantly at variance with the other people in the meetings. He acknowledges this in his autobiography because there is a litany of examples where Gates account of a meeting has contradicts those with companies like Sony, Apple, IBM, SUN and many others. The suggestion is that sometimes Gates may conflate the facts of a meeting so as to motivate his team.

The history and development of the PlayStation is well documented and these is nothing in there it was ever intended to compete with the PC. And when you stop and think about it, there was never any prospect of it doing so. It had insufficient RAM and no permanent storage; only very slow solid state cards.

It was a Nintendo Revenge box, nothing more. The 'doing more than just video games' angle was of course CD's and CD Video support.

 

[Karamazov]

 

[see colon]

I've never seen Sony never made any such a claim. From the VentureBeat article (and several published books) citing senior Microsoft people at the time

This is all from Sony's comments at Comdex 1999 I think.
Source

"The U.S. is under the false impression that it is the leader in mobile communications and non-PC devices," Sony President and Chief Executive Officer Nobuyuki Idei said in his keynote Monday. "Europe and Japan have a considerable lead over the U.S. and this gap could widen in the future."

The focus of the future will not belong to the PC, he said.

"The PC was the office tool," Idei said. The future belongs to Internet access devices, Idei said, adding that those will include game consoles, smart phones, set-top boxes, digital televisions and wireless handheld devices.

Source

At the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas last weekend, Sony President Nobuyuki Idei spoke with a confidence and determination that should have everyone in the videogame -- and PC world -- reprioritizing their efforts for the next five years. In his keynote address Idei said that the PlayStation 2 will change the way we use the TV, but more importantly he indicated that PlayStation 2 and its multimedia abilities would overshadow the role that once belonged to the PC.




Bold words indeed. But Idei's remarks were clear. He expects the PlayStation 2 to merge the lines between PCs, games, music, movies, and appliances. As was reported in September, the PlayStation 2 offers phenomenal graphics and previously unseen game features, as well as backward compatibility, Internet connectivity, and a set of new peripherals -- including a massive hard drive (for downloading movies) -- that will take place in the year 2001.

[snip]

Another important note to make is that many Sony internal teams are in fact gearing up for PlayStation 2, while more and more non-videogame companies will get involved in various software for the system. Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, added this: "This is the first mass-market product for the broadband world. We believe that PlayStation 2 will actually accelerate the deployment of broadband networking into consumers' homes. We are poised to take this to the next level of entertainment."

There are a bunch of articles written around this time, many from that Comdex, that came away with the same impression. Sony was coming after the PC through the living room. PS2 was a PC replacement. You could guide missiles with it. It has firewire and USB, so it's a PC. Stuff like that. PS3 pre-release marketing was like that as well. Cell is revolutionary, it can replace your PC, it runs Linux, it only does everything, 599 is probably too cheap. Stuff like that.

Part of why PS4 came off so well with gamers is that Sony finally figured out that gamers want to buy a machine that's marketed as a games console. Part of why the Xbox One came off so poorly was because Microsoft wanted it to be what Sony said the PS2 and PS3 were going to be.

 

[eastmen]

We all know that Sony didnt succeed because of luck but because they did everything right with an amazing product

So sony was sucessfull because they made a great product and not that their competitors who were established in the video game space had fuck ups.

Microsoft became sucessfull because sony who was established in the video game market made mess ups , not because the xbox 360 was one of the best executed consoles ever made with the perfect blending of online and single player content at a time when the competition was fumbling around in the dark (nintendo is still in the dark) when it comes to online.

Seems like a weird double standard you got going on there.

 

[zed]

The future belongs to Internet access devices, Idei said, adding that those will include game consoles, smart phones, set-top boxes, digital televisions and wireless handheld devices..

Prescient

The Claim that Sony said the PS2 would wipe out PCs is of course BS, The thing didnt even launch with a harddisk drive
So if this documentary is claiming that, you've gotten question its accuracy
edit: Also no internet until a couple of years later

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Sure, but it's not like MS were worried about PS2, but rather future consoles that would come later. Sony boasting just woke them up to that.

It's smart to think of the Xbox initiative as a multi-billon dollar insurance policy against PC supplantation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

There are a bunch of articles written around this time, many from that Comdex, that came away with the same impression. Sony was coming after the PC through the living room. PS2 was a PC replacement. You could guide missiles with it. It has firewire and USB, so it's a PC. Stuff like that. PS3 pre-release marketing was like that as well. Cell is revolutionary, it can replace your PC, it runs Linux, it only does everything, 599 is probably too cheap. Stuff like that.

What Sony and said and this above is miles apart. Whilst PS1 and PS2 did offer some functionality like media playback that would could do on a PC but I don't think anybody ever felt the PC was driven by its ability to play CDs and DVDs.

But Idei's remarks were clear. He expects the PlayStation 2 to merge the lines between PCs, games, music, movies, and appliances.

And some lines were merged, some things the PC could do were thing the PS2 could do out of the box. The base PS2 didn't have internet capabilities at all, you had a buy a network adaptor for the expansion slot for games and the Linux kit for linux but it was limited by the PS2's CPU and RAM. In retrospect the 'appliances' reference was probably things like the PSX and Sony's other pet projects to include PlayStaton hardware in some of their TVs.

What I'm saying is, if Microsoft thought PS2 was going to be a threat to PC, they over-reacted. The PC is a do-it-all device and - in retrospect with the benefit of hindsight - Sony clearly making reference to the emergence of devices that didn't just do one thing (i.e., it's not just a games console) because PS2 was one of the most successful DVD players ever sold. You could play games on the internet on the original PS2 if you bought the network adaptor. You could run some basic linux apps if you bought the Linux kit. If you want to do both (internet games and linux) you had to swap the HDDs because they the linux partition format was incompatible with the HDD format Sony used for the network connectivity software. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. PS2, PS3, PS4 and PS5 were/are no threat to the content creation capabilities of the PC. I don't think any of the PlayStation devices even support email (except the bonkers PSP mobile phone thing) and most have no web browser support.

Not that I'm complaining, Nintendo would have been a poor videogame technology competitor to Sony's PlayStations. Microsoft entering the fray was good for gamers.

I am enjoying the new information that Microsoft is releasing like the oopsy about passing on GTA III on Xbox, You an see where they were coming from though, nobody could have predicted the success of GTA III. I remember reading an article about the development of the original GTA III and how Sony almost passed on it as well. The only place I can find that now is this GAF thread. It is definitely worth a read It does include links to all of the sources, including the original article in French.

 

[Nesh]

So sony was sucessfull because they made a great product and not that their competitors who were established in the video game space had fuck ups.

Yes. PS1 took the market by storm. XBOX360 didnt

Microsoft became sucessfull because sony who was established in the video game market made mess ups , not because the xbox 360 was one of the best executed consoles ever made with the perfect blending of online and single player content at a time when the competition was fumbling around in the dark (nintendo is still in the dark) when it comes to online.

Seems like a weird double standard you got going on there.

XBOX was just an ok product that was alone in the market for a long time. Minus the Wii. But that wouldnt even be considered a real competition.