scooby_dooby
Legend
aka Finding out the maximum amount that they can rape us for.
Very Interesting Xbox 360 Survey
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aka Finding out the maximum amount that they can rape us for.
Joe DeFuria
Legend
Hmmm...a company doing research to find out what its customers are willing to pay, and for what.
Bad. Microsoft...BAD!
scooby_dooby
Legend
Hmmm...a company doing research to find out what its customers are willing to pay, and for what.
Bad. Microsoft...BAD!
Please, they know that an upgraded controller would sell at the same price as the current controller, so that argument is nonsense. They know what would sell, this all about how to extract EXTRA money from the userbase.
It is bad, I don't own MS stocks, and I don't appreciate price gouging like a $100 wifi dongle, $100 HDD, and $70 controllers.
You can make all the excuses you want, but as far as I'm concerned they are gouging the consumer and at the same time creating a monopoly by not allowing any competitors in the wireless space.
Why should I have to buy a new controller to replace one that was faulty to begin with? Didn't I just pay $50 for a controller, and the DPad is fucked? Shouldn't they be replacing my faulty controller? Instead of coming out with a 'new improved' model for extra money, that only fixes the initial problem??
couldn't agree more.
it's a free market baby.
don't buy it if you don't like the price. If it sells at the listed price to enough people... guess what?..... it's worth it and priced right. It's just business, it's not about rape.
There is a subtle but important difference. Portable music players (and cell phones) are also seen as a fashion item. People don't mind getting stucked with an iPod because it's seen as 'Cool' or even 'Premium'. It's personal expression.
Game consoles such as PS3 and Xbox 360 stay at home and are lesser brands. In that case, people generally take the 'Utilitarian' angle... which according to Ascert93, he'd rather have the movies on the open PC platform. There is no anti-MS agenda in his post as far as I can see.
What's more... for many years, Apple focused on details and quality for Macintoshes, so people have come to accept its higher price. MS still have a long way to go given that Xbox 360 has suffered from hardware issues. Also indeed I dislike their more extreme lock-in and milk from proprietary peripherals strategies. Even when Apple did/does it, they always try to justify the higher price by highlighting superior featureset/quality for their proprietary technologies (compared to PC counterparts). Otherwise, they are actually a 'value-based' company (Look at their 99 cent song and TV episode launch prices).
scooby_dooby
Legend
Actually it's the opposite of a free market, with MS not allowing any 3rd party competitors to offer wireless controllers, so you are forced to buy exclusively from them, and they can set any price they like.
This creates a situation where they can take advantage of people who have already purchased the initial hardware...and what do you know, it looks like they are.
there are no 3rd party accessories?
hmmm I was not aware of that.
still, the system has everything you need to play and enjoy. If you want the added features (accessories) buy them at that price, if not, don't.
Does that license cost 19.70$ a pop? If it does, the studios are stupid.
They are not.valioso said:
Look, movies are nice. I like movies. But the downloadable is cheaper for the distributor, and lesser value to the consumer, than a DVD. If there should ever be a chance for digital distribution to catch on, it needs to be priced appropriately.
There is shitloads of money to be made if done correctly, but if the studios are too greedy, it won't work. Most commercial attempts at digital media distribution have been spectacular failures because the prices were ridiculous. Parity with DVD prices is ridiculous.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Only wired.
I wouldn't have a problem if the pricing was more realistic, I just think everything is about 20-30% too expensive, and it just reeks of greed and of trying to bleed every possible penny they can out of us. Which would be fine if there were some competition....but there isn't.
With that said, pricing on the HD-DVD drive is awesome, so I guess I have to cut them a tiny bit of slack, and the stock wireless controller is very high quality (other than the dpad)
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I agree with this, but as a customer, I research products to make sure I get my money's worth. I'm also entitled to be upset with products I don't think value for money. eg. 64 MB memory card for £23? I can get 2GB CF for £18. Should I be happy to pay £23 for 64 MB, obviously overpriced technology, just because it's a price people are willing to pay?
If I was asked to pay $70 for a controller, I'd like to have some explanation as to why. I know not every consumer is like that, but it's something I personally would like to know. It seems the answer is 'MS would be willing to charge $70 because that's how much people are willing to pay,' and not 'because the technology involved justifies that price.'
It doesn't, but that is a possible price so can't be ignored...Powderkeg said:
Because that's how much people might be asked to pay? If PS3 was announced as costing between $200 and $1000 dollars last year, what should the discussion be? '$200 is great, way to go Sony?' and everyone ignores the possibility of a possible grand pricepoint, or 'There's no @$*&£ way I'm going to spend $1000 on a console!'?
What about a $20 difference? Why are so fixated on the lower price?
If it's only $10 more, there might well be no complaining. If there's $20 more, is that too much? What's wrong with actually asking this question? Why is it considerd by some unfair to look at the price of products and compare them to similar products to see whether they're good value or not?
Why not? $59.99 is another possible price point and you've been perfectly happy ignoring that.
Have you ever tried calling MS and asking them to fix your broken D-Pad?
And correct me if I am wrong, but backlit lights and a rubber grip, as well as the black color don't count as "fixing the initial problem" do they? Those are new features that are different from the original controllers, are they not?
Or as MS would call it: a feature.
I'm sure some might find that funny.
I however have 2 gamepads, both with perfectly working D-Pads, so I'm sort of left wondering WTF you are talking about.
Both my controller that came with the system and another that I bough seperately have faulty dpads. They both don't register directions(especially diagonals) most of the time.
I went and bought another one recently to see if it's been fixed(wanted to play SF2 and UMK3) and while improved slightly they still have the same problems.
The dpad just flat out sucks.
Oh, you sort of missed all the ranting then I suppose.
There are a lot of people, myself included, who don't like the d-pad at all. It does make those old arcade games a bit more challanging though...
Edit - I'm having those issues on both of mine controllers too.
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RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Really? Was MS's motion sensing controller more money when it was released 8(?) years ago? And the licensing fees on the rumble tech is the exact reason why Sony doesn't include it in their new controllers. So the lack of rumble in the Sony controllers is most certainly all about price, where the lack of motion sensing in the 360 controllers isn't about price, it's about the fact that MS already tried it and found no market for it.
So by that logic, the DS2 and the Controller S both weren't 'next gen' LAST generation and were therefore overpriced at that point.
And your definition of 'Last gen controllers' includes no mention of being wireless. My definition of 'next gen controllers' include all the things you mentioned above and the real key component here is that 'next gen controllers' are wireless. The fact that last gen controllers included rumble, and this gen there's a controller that doesn't include a 'standard' feature from last year puts a real question in my mind as to whether or not that controller can be considered 'next gen'. Removing one feature and replacing it with another, smacks of laziness, not ingeninuity.
See? It's completely arbitrary.
My entire point was to be silly. I wasn't sure that you were going to get my point which is why I included the part about color so that it would be easily understood.
And it certainly was an argument about next-gen'ness. You used 'next gen or not' as the entire basis for whether or not the price was justified. Yet, as I showed in my silly response, your criteria for what is next gen or not was completely arbitrary.
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If the bom is $11, then $50 is a fair price.
Factor in shipping/distribution, packaging, engineering, setup costs, advertising, support, faulty stock and the ~2x markup the retailer will slap on it, and it's reasonable. (not to mention the loss on the console)
We recently purchased a webcam for $79nz from a retail store (thats $50us). It was a pc magazines 'best value' webcam. Considering an equivalent spec logitec, etc could easily cost twice the price.
The model was exactly the same as a sample we had sent from china. The sample base price was $4.50us/unit (5.50 for a better sensor). For utterly basic packaging, including driver CD, that went up to $6. $7 for decent packaging (magnetic lid, etc). And to ship them in quantities over 1,000 you were looking at less than $12/unit. So with the retailer buying them for ~$20-25, you don't have much room for profit.
No doubt the bill of materials was significantly lower again.
This is an update to a rumor that we discussed some time ago with regard to Vanguard and a Text Input Device.
In my post linked below I found some granted patents and patent applications with regard to this device.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showpost.php?p=394300&postcount=10
I've since found out that Microsoft refiled that patent and it was published today(Nov 9, 2006):
Application # 20060250371
"Embedded text input"
Published: November 9, 2006
Filed: July 3, 2006
I can't see anything different with the images. So it's still showing the TID attached to an S Controller instead of the Xbox 360 controller.
Doing a Google search I did find this image from ArsTechnica:
I also found this blurb on the official Xbox site:
Official Xbox Website said:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/features/messagecenter.htm
Seems like Microsoft is definitely planning on shipping the device, but are just trying to get an idea of the pricing.
Tommy McClain
P.S. In my patent searching I also noticed another Microsoft patent application that could be related to Peter Jackson's interactive Halo title:
Application # 20060253783
"Story Template Structures Associated With Story Enhancing Content And Rules"
Published: November 9, 2006
Filed: May 9, 2005
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