Do you guys think the Switch event will continue the trend of focusing marketing moreso towards older adult gamers, like in the Switch reveal trailer (which only featured adults) / and appearing on the late night Jimmy Fallon Show? Or do you think the theme will be split equally between targeting adults and kids? Or somewhat more towards kids, like Nintendo traditionally has?
What MS, Sony, Nintendo should be or are doing next
- Thread starter Nesh
- Start date
Mid teen to early adult I think . Its going to be $250-300 so while I know kids will get them I think at the start it will be mostly for adults
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Deleted member 11852
Guest
That's why I suggested in my earlier message and what I think is actually quite likely because Windows 10 adoption clearly isn't where Microsoft want it to be.
Ah, I think we're at cross purposes. Let me clarify, I'm not talking about changing the existing Xbox ecosystem, other than what Microsoft are already attempting with PlayAnywhere, I'm talking about Scorpio having a full Windows 10 mode so it can operate like any other PC running Windows software.
They can still make it a digital license that cuts down on second hand market without making it a Play Anywhere title. So even if only a small amount of people buy both, thats still more sales than giving away a free copy. There is essentially no benefit for a third party to make Play Anywhere titles other than goodwill for PR
A lot of the counter arguments are too focussed on the way things presently are, rather than seeing what they could be and where MS would want to take Xbox/Windows. The vision is a platform with devices that run software, plain and simple. A singular platform is easier and cheaper to operate than two or three distinct platforms. That's why MS created Win 10 as a singular OS for PCs and mobiles, and also boxes. All that's needed for a 'console' is a nicer frontend, for a PC to boot into 'game mode'. And a few weeks ago we learnt MS is introducing a Game Mode for PC.
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Deleted member 13524
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Microsoft could (and IMO should) put Windows 10 in Scorpio, but they would definitely only allow UWP apps in it.
Win32 would be left out, as well as direct access to the file system as they wouldn't want the thing to be cracked to run non-UWP stuff either.
Which makes me wonder how much of a PC-replacement Scorpio could ever be.
Win32 would be left out, as well as direct access to the file system as they wouldn't want the thing to be cracked to run non-UWP stuff either.
Which makes me wonder how much of a PC-replacement Scorpio could ever be.
Right but you cant jump to the end game without explaining how to get there first. You yourself admitted MS has failed to execute many times, this is not their first game store or the first time they tried to unify their apps. The unified app store sounds nice in theory but its a long way to get there
Windows Store is a dead end for publishers right now. We know from the Kotaku article that 98% of Tomb Raider PC sales were on Steam, so how is Microsoft going to attract more publishers and grow their store? Through selling Xbox consoles? But they are struggling with that aswell, the brand is dead outside NA/UK
Their only option is to use the Xbox as a trojan horse, sell 100 million of those and MS can demand play anywhere as a requirement wich in turn automatically makes the PC store explode. But in order to do that, they need more than just "Scorpio, uber specs, buy it now"
The unified app store is connected to the success of the Xbox
Even if you want to target younger audience this far out they cannot pester an adult to buy it for them yet so seems reasonable you would advertise to an older market / those who will eventually pay for the product.
We may see a more youthful advertising campaign directly before and during launch.
Yeah, but if it's a full PC it is open to running software that isn't sourced from the Windows Store and if it can't do that it's not really a PC. As we found out with Windows 8, consumers are aggressively disinterested in "PC-lite" type products. Enabling a PC mode creates an expectation of functionality that if not delivered makes even having a PC mode a net negative as consumers will focus much more on what it can't do instead of what it can.
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It is this that I fundamentally disagree with. Part of the appeal of consoles is that for the same money you get much better hardware than an equivalently-priced PC. It is the difficulty in delivering this that prevents more companies from getting into the console market. If you're MS or Sony, giving up this advantage is effectively leveling the playing field and then you really can start expecting competition from Apple, Google, Amazon et al.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Unless said device provides a similar gaming experience at a far lower price. Without buying used hardware it isn't possible to make a PC that offers a similar gaming experience to the XBO-S at a similar price.
For Microsoft it doesn't matter if the margins on the console hardware is razor thin as long as they get the revenue cut from any software that runs on said console. Said console will be custom, but could be using off the shelf PC components or semi-custom designs (SOC using off the shelf PC CPU/GPU blocks, for example). Said console would be nothing more than Windows in a box. Not-user upgradable for the most part...just like most notebook PCs or Intel NUC style PCs.
It'd be a PC in everything but name and the fact that it's using a custom Console UI, with any Windows components that aren't needed not included (system management services, WOW, Explorer, etc.), and running a closed garden.
People would buy it because it'd give the gaming experience of a PC that costs twice as much or more. With the convenience of a console. The drawback being that it'd be limited to a console interface and access to applications outside of gaming being limited to what is in the Microsoft Store.
Basically what Microsoft have been working to transition the XBO into. Except that custom hardware will only exist to reduce the cost rather than introducing features that do not exist for Windows PCs.
All, IMO, of course.
Regards,
SB
Silent_Buddha
Legend
That's how it is now due to how Xbox and PC were separate ecosystems.
However, what if, in the future every game released on Xbox is just a UWP application? That would mean that any game released for Xbox would also by default run on any Windows 10 or higher Windows device.
It doesn't affect publishers much as people that game a lot on console generally aren't people that game on PC. There are, of course, exceptions (some of the people on this forum for example). But it should be obvious by now that people on this forum do no represent the average consumer buying consoles to game on.
And of the small percentage of console gamers that do also play AAA games on PC, it's just a small percentage of those that buy a copy for both PC and console. Meaning the impact on publishers would be diminishingly small. Well, other then the cost savings of developing for one platform instead of having differing code bases for Xbox and PC.
Regards,
SB
Unless said device provides a similar gaming experience at a far lower price. Without buying used hardware it isn't possible to make a PC that offers a similar gaming experience to the XBO-S at a similar price.
For Microsoft it doesn't matter if the margins on the console hardware is razor thin as long as they get the revenue cut from any software that runs on said console. Said console will be custom, but could be using off the shelf PC components or semi-custom designs (SOC using off the shelf PC CPU/GPU blocks, for example). Said console would be nothing more than Windows in a box. Not-user upgradable for the most part...just like most notebook PCs or Intel NUC style PCs.
It'd be a PC in everything but name and the fact that it's using a custom Console UI, with any Windows components that aren't needed not included (system management services, WOW, Explorer, etc.), and running a closed garden.
People would buy it because it'd give the gaming experience of a PC that costs twice as much or more. With the convenience of a console. The drawback being that it'd be limited to a console interface and access to applications outside of gaming being limited to what is in the Microsoft Store.
Basically what Microsoft have been working to transition the XBO into. Except that custom hardware will only exist to reduce the cost rather than introducing features that do not exist for Windows PCs.
All, IMO, of course.
Regards,
SB
That's exactly what we have now. What's the difference?
Value proposition from consumers pov is relatively easy to see.
Not the same from publisher. If someone is able to play it on multiple devices do they have higher engagement, due to higher engagement are they more likely to buy some micro transactions, how much does that of set the small number of sales lost?
Positive pr, and lot of other factors.
Trouble Ms has right now is that their stats to prove anything(positive or negative) to publishers is probably very clouded with the state of the store and uwp.
The point is a lost sale could be made up in other ways, bit too early to say I would think.
This will happen to some degree, but it will require developers to opt-in. If you're MS you can't really force developers to have to support the wild-west PC platform with all of it's varied hardware/software configurations if they don't want to take that on.
You can release a UWP game without making it Play Anywhere. Resident Evil 7 will be a UWP game without Play Anywhere support. Right now a third party publisher has no reason to support Play Anywhere, hell its a miracle they support the Windows Store considering the abysmal sales of Tomb Raider and COD
So the only way this happens is if Xbox takes back serious amounts of marketshare and then Microsoft mandates Play Anywhere as a requirement to publish games on Xbox
Silent_Buddha
Legend
If it isn't it certainly isn't far off. If Steam Survey is anything to go by Windows 10 holds 50.97% of machines that Steam is installed on. Windws 7 currently holds 34.25%. At a similar point in Windows 7's lifetime, it held a smaller percentage of the Windows install base (Windows XP remained quite popular due to a variety of reasons, not least of which how easy it was to run a pirated version).
That would be fantastic, IMO. However, I don't think Microsoft will be heading in that direction unless the Xbox "platform" completely dies. Allowing Project Scorpio to have a fully enabled Windows 10 mode would open up a lot of attack vectors to compromise the security of the device compared to keeping it a locked down closed garden limited to the Microsoft Store.
Regards,
SB
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yes, but currently, XBO games are NOT UWP games. XBO games and UWP versions of those games are separate code bases. What I'm saying is that at some point in the future, it's likely that all games on Xbox will be just UWP games and not the current dichotomy of XBO game and UWP game.
Regards,
SB
Silent_Buddha
Legend
That there won't be custom parts that are designed just for console. Semi-Custom parts will instead just be a cost cutting measure to make a cheaper Windows machine that carries the Xbox branding.
Regards,
SB
