What benefits does an OEM get for having the Console Performance Crown?

[Deleted member 11852]

Lol well I'm not sure if people are worried, we've skipped past concern and gone straight to wagering.

I don't know if 'worry' or 'concern' are the right terms. The only people who should worry or concerned are Microsoft themselves, just as Sony would experiences those same feelings when deciding how to best communicate the advantages of Pro. Most think the Pro reveal was lacklustre but what it didn't do was alarm the wider PS4 user base who had no interest in Pro yet those interested in Pro had a chance to see what it was all about. This is a 100% win from where I sit.

I bet $100 that Microsoft's conference is not all about Scorpio. You know why that would be a dumb idea? Because as sales data demonstrates, price is waaaaay more impactful than performance and whatever the asking price for Scorpio, Xbox One S will be cheaper and appeal wider and you just can't cut those people out. For a new Xbox One S owners, new to the ecosystem, what would you take from an E3 conference focussed solely on Scorpio? That Microsoft are throwing your purchase under the bus? It's got to cross your mind, surely and make you question further investment in the platform. That's a lose for Microsoft.

I have zero doubt Microsoft want to depreciate the base Xbox One platform as soon as possible.. It's behind their competition by a fair degree and once Scorpio launches, it will hold back Scorpio just like PS4 holds back Pro although the delta is less for Sony than Microsoft.

People on this forum seem incapable of accepting that consoles sell to a majority of people with purchasing decisions very different from 'performance first'. That is the entire point of consoles. Microsoft can so nail E3 but I do think it would be a huge mistake to focus entirely on Scorpio for the same reason most PS4 owners did not buy a Pro, why most Steam users are not using i7 and 1080Ti/Titan cards. Gaming is not their life and while the core gamers buy more games than casual gamers, revenue from casual gamers vastly outweighs revenue from core gamers because they are such a small minority. Companies will chase the largest profit market for obvious reasons.

 

[iroboto]

I don't know if 'worry' or 'concern' are the right terms. The only people who should worry or concerned are Microsoft themselves, just as Sony would experiences those same feelings when deciding how to best communicate the advantages of Pro. Most think the Pro reveal was lacklustre but what it didn't do was alarm the wider PS4 user base who had no interest in Pro yet those interested in Pro had a chance to see what it was all about. This is a 100% win from where I sit.

I bet $100 that Microsoft's conference is not all about Scorpio. You know why that would be a dumb idea? Because as sales data demonstrates, price is waaaaay more impactful than performance and whatever the asking price for Scorpio, Xbox One S will be cheaper and appeal wider and you just can't cut those people out. For a new Xbox One S owners, new to the ecosystem, what would you take from an E3 conference focussed solely on Scorpio? That Microsoft are throwing your purchase under the bus? It's got to cross your mind, surely and make you question further investment in the platform. That's a lose for Microsoft.

I have zero doubt Microsoft want to depreciate the base Xbox One platform as soon as possible.. It's behind their competition by a fair degree and once Scorpio launches, it will hold back Scorpio just like PS4 holds back Pro although the delta is less for Sony than Microsoft.

People on this forum seem incapable of accepting that consoles sell to a majority of people with purchasing decisions very different from 'performance first'. That is the entire point of consoles. Microsoft can so nail E3 but I do think it would be a huge mistake to focus entirely on Scorpio for the same reason most PS4 owners did not buy a Pro, why most Steam users are not using i7 and 1080Ti/Titan cards. Gaming is not their life and while the core gamers buy more games than casual gamers, revenue from casual gamers vastly outweighs revenue from core gamers because they are such a small minority. Companies will chase the largest profit market for obvious reasons.

I don't think anyone disagrees with your points, they are certainly valid. Nearly all of them. Though the angle I'm seeing it at may not be the same?

It's important for MS to show that they own the crown for best graphics again, it's not necessarily important that people buy Scorpio. As long as that image is there in people's mind, every face off team xbox wins. Even though if you don't own one, that's okay too, your team won lol.

So while I agree full heartedly with your points, this conference and the story behind it will be about selling Scorpio as being the real deal and also about taking back the graphics crown. How much time they spend on showcasing Scorpio is probably dependent on how easily they can actually showcase that it's better. No easy feat at all. I'm still not sure what to expect and deep down inside I'm still expecting just 4K versions of XBO games as a baseline.

And honestly that still might not be enough to take back the crown. They're gonna need more and that would require Xbox one resolutions to drop further down or use some other techniques to push XBO further.

 

[Cyan]

Why? I can understand that it's important for fanboys but what does this get Microsoft exactly¿

how much you care about the capabilities of a device? Can give you that, it's not the only factor. However @iroboto has a point... It might sound unpopular but there are people who like their consoles to be powerful. It makes your life easier and better, your eyes would be thankful (at 320x240, motion sickness was pretty common, from personal experience and those who played games with me at that resolution).

It's ironic, because consoles wise the best company in MY opinion is Nintendo. They do their thing whether you like it or not, they don't boast power at all, other console makers do --and that's a joke when you have the PC making them blush! But even Nintendo try to improve their products every day and not only from an experience point of view, their consoles tend to evolve, power wise.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Nobody should forget the reason for the Xbox success is because of the 360, which launched as the most powerful gaming device on the market until Uber-SLI gaming PC's that were magnitudes more expensive took the crown. And Sony didn't have a competitor in the market for a year, and it took many more years for that device to catch up to the 360 visuals.

Unfortunately, in this case, I agree with DSoup that it doesn't matter. It didn't matter to me when I bought an XB1 instead of a PS4 that I wasn't getting the most powerful console, I bought it for other reasons and neither console could hold a candle to the PC. I don't think Scorpio's power will really matter much to anybody but the Xbox community. The performance differences between it and the PS4 Pro will not be evidently and obviously apparent to every layperson or gamer's Grandmother. I think going x86 and allowing a more clear line of comparison between these consoles and the equivalent PC was a horrible idea, because it goes to show just how far behind the times they are. IF you want the best visuals and AI, you have to play on PC. If you are interested in other things, you've already determined that power of the device isn't the most important so Scorpio VS PS4/Pro, etc.. it's all shades of grey and for forum warriors. These battles all take place with the understanding that there are other machines in existence that do their job better.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

how much you care about the capabilities of a device? Can give you that, it's not the only factor. However @iroboto has a point... It might sound unpopular but there are people who like their consoles to be powerful.

You are describing the budget performance consumer. Those rare unicorns for whom hardware investment in real $$$ terms is below the level that makes a PC a viable option but otherwise want the best bang for buck. These are not people on the bleeding edge. I bought a PS4 Pro because primarily the console experience is way better than PC (Steam updates, Windows updates - occasionally killing games, Nvidia driver updates - occasionally killing games, not all games supporting Big Picture Mode launching or controller-only input) and value higher performance whatever the cost but I know that I'm in a minority. A minority I can afford to be in while also owning a 32Gb DDR4 water-cooled i7 with a 1080 card.

 

[Cyan]

You are describing the budget performance consumer. Those rare unicorns for whom hardware investment in real $$$ terms is below the level that makes a PC a viable option but otherwise want the best bang for buck. These are not people on the bleeding edge. I bought a PS4 Pro because primarily the console experience is way better than PC (Steam updates, Windows updates - occasionally killing games, Nvidia driver updates - occasionally killing games, not all games supporting Big Picture Mode launching or controller-only input) and value higher performance whatever the cost but I know that I'm in a minority. A minority I can afford to be in while also owning a 32Gb DDR4 water-cooled i7 with a 1080 card.

why didn't you get a Xbox One then? From mouth to mouth advice?

My guess is that you purchased it because it is a budget performance device but it is more powerful than the XB1. Because let me tell you that MS can do great or worse, there is no halfway with them most of the time, but had I to choose a console because of the experience and I'd probably go with the Xbox One, it simply does more things.

Thought NVidia drivers were better, but anyways. (you're a lucky guy,gotta add)

As for updates...,consoles sadly have updates all the time in current times.

In regards to the PC you have, well, it's overkill but I wouldn't mind having that, only would change the CPU for a AMD Ryzen.

Additionally, nowadays you can get a PC that's more powerful than both the PS4 Pro and X360 pasted together for 700€. :smile2:

Ryzen 1600
RX 580 8GB or GTX1060 6GB GPU
MSI B350M Gaming Pro
3200MHz DDR4 RAM

it'd make love to your eyes

 

[iroboto]

Why? I can understand that it's important for fanboys but what does this get Microsoft exactly?

You're looking for any competitive advantages you can grab. You don't want to have the worst library, the worst platform and the worst performing graphics. Having a completely inferior product is probably not ideal, and is a large reason why XBOX fell so far behind his gen. it didn't take the crown on any one item at launch and that snowballed into this lead.

By taking back at least the platform and performance crown, it goes into next gen a bit better when it comes to recognition, at least MS will change the narrative the years leading up to next gen even if sales don't reflect it. As we've witnessed it takes a long time to build up good reputation and very little to blow it away.

 

[wco81]

X360 didn't sell so well because of it's perceived performance advantages.

It was because it was out a year earlier and the PS3 was priced higher.

In fact there was a lot of hype about the PS3 but turned out the X360 performed better. That wasn't the perception by the time the PS3 was released. But it didn't matter, people went for XBL, some good exclusive titles like Gears of War, Halo, etc.

Success of Scorpio is going to come down a lot to price, specifically the delta between it and the PS4 Pro, PS4 and X1 S. If the price delta is large, then the graphics differences will have to be substantial. Even then, the fact is that lower prices just addresses a much larger market.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You're looking for any competitive advantages you can grab. You don't want to have the worst library, the worst platform and the worst performing graphics.

Agreed. But performance = cost and when did that ever prove successful? Nvidia's 'Ti' cards don't outsell the the other cards. the '80' cards don't outsell the '70' cards and the '70' cards don't outsell the '60' cards for the obvious reality that more people can afford a 60 than can afford a 70 than can afford a 80 than can afford a Ti. It's market economics 101. It's why Ford outsell Ferrari and Lamborghini. The mass market is price sensitive and always has been been. It's very rare that market economies break this convention except in rare cases like iOS vs. Android where Android has the greater market share but iOS regenerates more revenue.

Having a completely inferior product is probably not ideal, and is a large reason why XBOX fell so far behind his gen. it didn't take the crown on any one item at launch and that snowballed into this lead.

I would argue fervently that Xbox One isn't inferior. Microsoft banked on features appealing to a market that did not exist. They banked on concurrent media management as a draw and Kinect controlling it all as a USP. When Microsoft and Sony stop taking risks and trying new things the console market will begin a slow decline into predictable iterative tedium.

 

[iroboto]

X360 didn't sell so well because of it's perceived performance advantages.

It was because it was out a year earlier and the PS3 was priced higher.

In fact there was a lot of hype about the PS3 but turned out the X360 performed better. That wasn't the perception by the time the PS3 was released. But it didn't matter, people went for XBL, some good exclusive titles like Gears of War, Halo, etc.

Success of Scorpio is going to come down a lot to price, specifically the delta between it and the PS4 Pro, PS4 and X1 S. If the price delta is large, then the graphics differences will have to be substantial. Even then, the fact is that lower prices just addresses a much larger market.

Exactly and this was pretty much a perfect role reversal here, except that unlike PS3, XBO has no way of ever taking the crown back.
And then the long 8 year journey for fixing the first party narrative came into play and Sony started the next generation with huge momentum and success.

And so this is where I see Scorpio more or less. Completely unable to change the landscape for MS, thus I'm fully aligned with Dsoup and Rancid on this point, however it's a check in the box. So with graphics, and platform and services checked off, they can focus all their energy from now till next gen on just rebuilding their library. They no longer need to fight all these fronts in consumers eyes, they only need to rebuild their library. And that's takes a lot of time.

 

[iroboto]

Agreed. But performance = cost and when did that ever prove successful? Nvidia's 'Ti' cards don't outsell the the other cards. the '80' cards don't outsell the '70' cards and the '70' cards don't outsell the '60' cards for the obvious reality that more people can afford a 60 than can afford a 70 than can afford a 80 than can afford a Ti. It's market economics 101. It's why Ford outsell Ferrari and Lamborghini. The mass market is price sensitive and always has been been. It's very rare that market economies break this convention except in rare cases like iOS vs. Android where Android has the greater market share but iOS regenerates more revenue.

I think with this one there are hard limits to the price that consoles can go, unlike real luxury items. And this is more or less like most electronic devices, Scorpio won't be associated with being wealthy, it's just associated with being paired with 4K TV sets. Thus, I don't believe that spread in price points will ever happen, the idea that the console is 'good enough' where paying a little more to pair it with 4K, I think over time as 4K becomes more prevalent, this argument will work towards Scorpio's favour.

I would argue fervently that Xbox One isn't inferior. Microsoft banked on features appealing to a market that did not exist. They banked on concurrent media management as a draw and Kinect controlling it all as a USP. When Microsoft and Sony stop taking risks and trying new things the console market will begin a slow decline into predictable iterative tedium.

True, unfortunately, victors write the history books =P. I mean I bought into MS for that vision of Kinect and TV all in one. It failed to materialize honestly, and I don't know if it would have been a better product overall if it actually managed to really deliver on those fronts, because at least imo, if the benefits of everything else could completely and entirely wash away a resolution reduction, then it made its own case.

But it didn't, and since it didn't manage to, performance became the principal argument, and thus the media was a substantial in informing everyone where the value laid, which was PS4 in this case, at least from a performance perspective.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

why didn't you get a Xbox One then? From mouth to mouth advice?

I was making my decision last May and was banking on Microsoft brining more Xbox exclusives to Windows, which turned out to be a good prediction because that's what they the following month at E3 2016. Yesterday I bought my first 'Xbox' game - Gears 4 for half price (£20) so I look forward to playing that this week. A PC is more appealing to me because I really like the indie scene on Steam but indie games are more and more demanding.

Ark is terrible on console, it's great on PC. Well, it's great on my PC!

 

[dobwal]

Premium skus' value can be more easily derived by how much software it sells in conjunction with unit sales and not by unit sales alone. The premium skus are meant to capture additional dollars from enthusiasts that spend more on gaming than your average gamer.

For Sony the Pro represents a way to mitigate losses as the gen matures to the PC market as well as provide better hardware for a VR experience.

For MS, minus VR, it also gives them an opportunity to capture enthusiasts who went the Sony route or even though they own an Xbox they spend most of their money on the better performing PS4 titles.

If the gaming industry is anything like the movie theater industry where you have just 10-15% of movie goers generating 50% of the total tickets sales, then capturing more of these types of users can have an outsized impact on your revenue.

If you are mostly selling your consoles at cost then selling 40 million base consoles is no different than selling 10 millions premium consoles if premium consoles have 4X the attachment rate.

 

[orangpelupa]

If you are mostly selling your consoles at cost then selling 40 million base consoles is no different than selling 10 millions premium consoles if premium consoles have 4X the attachment rate.

yeah, its like PSVR with its ridiculously high attach rate with early adopters. I forgot where i read that tho.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

yeah, its like PSVR with its ridiculously high attach rate with early adopters. I forgot where i read that tho.

Only one I saw was from Gamestop and they were referring to peripheral sales as well. Are PSVR games full price games or are they less expensive like on Steam?

edit - looks like most are $20 or so.

 

[orangpelupa]

Only one I saw was from Gamestop and they were referring to peripheral sales as well. Are PSVR games full price games or are they less expensive like on Steam?

edit - looks like most are $20 or so.

i think that i bough are 40-60 instead of 20.

heck, i also bought farpoint. so i guess im a statistic anomaly

 

[Davros]

I has a question
since the consoles are basically amd x86 apu's
how does the most powerful pc amd x86 apu compare to that in the console

 

[mpg1]

Not sure the argument?...Same amount of time between Scorpio and Xbox One as there was between Xbox 360 and Xbox. I don't remember getting pissed when Microsoft launched 360 and I had an Xbox...and that was an considered an "actual gen" leap with less compatibility.

They can focus on Scorpio all they want and on its power. They'd be dumb not too imo. I think Xbox owners or people who tend to buy Xbox do care about the performance.

 

[Johnglen]

Nice thread, I don't remember many threads like this in the last few years. Scorpio certainly stings some people

 

[Jay]

Sometimes in life the people who defend people is actually a lot louder and lot more in number than the people their actually trying to protect.

I have a feeling this is one of those cases. Is it possible some may be disgruntled for some reason, sure, but i doubt it's a huge amount. They'll be ok as long as they're told their still being supported, and that's definitely the case.