Why no Xbox2 at CES?

[quest55720]

I was wondering if you heard rumors or anything why there was no xbox2 at CES? I can't believe they are holding off and trying to go head to head with sony in the hype game. Once sony gets thier juiced up magical numbers out there most people won't even remember the there is going to be a Xbox2. I thought a nice teaser at CES would of been perfect to kick off 10 months of hype till launch. They did not have to say any specs just show some bullshit video demo that blow people away even though there will never be games that look that good.

You are all the experts do you believe no showing at CES was a good idea or not and why?

 

[cybamerc]

They want to maximize the current momentum Xbox enjoys. By announcing Xbox 2 at CES they could potentially lose a lot of sales.

All signs point towards some sort of preliminary announcement at GDC and then a full unveiling at E3. I don't think they'll be any worse off for it. They would have to go up against Sony and Nintendo at E3 anyway and I have no doubt whatsoever that M$ is much further along. Ultimately I think people will be more excited about actual next-gen games than whatever Sony has cooked up in PowerPoint. And I'm quite sure M$ has prepared a competent launch line-up whereas Sony at least has a history of weak launches.

 

[London Geezer]

They want to maximize the current momentum Xbox enjoys. By announcing Xbox 2 at CES they could potentially lose a lot of sales.

Momentum? What momentum?

All signs point towards some sort of preliminary announcement at GDC and then a full unveiling at E3. I don't think they'll be any worse off for it. They would have to go up against Sony and Nintendo at E3 anyway and I have no doubt whatsoever that M$ is much further along. Ultimately I think people will be more excited about actual next-gen games than whatever Sony has cooked up in PowerPoint. And I'm quite sure M$ has prepared a competent launch line-up whereas Sony at least has a history of weak launches.

Errr maybe because Sony knows full well that launches don't mean anything. A "bad launch" is just another thing for geeks to bitch about in Internet Forums when they don't know what to bitch about. Normal people don't care. Or else PS2 wouldn't have sold as much as it did at launch and for the first year, considering there were very few games worth picking up. That's also the reason why the splendind Xbox launch, with the (YAWN) best launch game ever didn't really help MS's situation much.

 

[Qroach]

Momentum? What momentum?

An increase in year over year hardware sales for the last three months of 2004 is probably what he means by momentum. Mostly driven by halo 2 I'd guess.

A "bad launch" is just another thing for geeks to bitch about in Internet Forums when they don't know what to bitch about

Sony doesn't care about people bitching in internet forums. I have to agree with cybermerc, people will be more interested in seeing actual games then any sort of paper launch or tech demos. We'll have to see how it pans out.

 

[London Geezer]

Momentum? What momentum?

Umm you know that increase in year over year hardware sales for the last three months of 2004 is probably what he means by momentum.

A "bad launch" is just another thing for geeks to bitch about in Internet Forums when they don't know what to bitch about

Sony doesn't care about people bitching in internet forums. I have to agree with cybermerc, people will be more interested in seeing actual games then any sort of paper launch or tech demos. We'll have to see how it pans out.

Obviously people will want to see real games, but until they're ready we both know the millions of mindless drones will buy into whatever hype Sony, MS and whoever else will cook up with Powerpoint presentations made the day before in 10 minutes.
Sony doesn't care about internet forums, and they shouldn't. They targetted the "casual gamers" (=ignorant with money to spend), and those ones usually don't even look at internet forums.

 

[hey69]

i miisvoted that it was a bad idea


it is a good idea they didnt post.
way to early they better wait what sony will say ..

 

[cthellis42]

Not showing anything now doesn't inspire much confidence that Xbox 2 will launch A) at the end of the year, or B) well. People can make plenty of comparisons to the first Xbox and see that they're running well behind their previously-established schedule, and whether that means anything or not, it will "mean something to them." Launching later also means there will be much more of the Xbox 2 sharing news cycles with their competition, rather than being able to run away with them all by themselves for months first. Giving something CES 2001-like now would have filled the news channels with Xbox 2 information, and all they'd have to do is make sure they have another set of "important releases" to make when PS3/N5 information comes out to keep themselves in the limelight.

 

[London Geezer]

People still don't get it. Sony put a virus in their first Walkman's, that makes people Sony drones to whatever Sony released after the Walkman that was advertised a lot and was "cool". Whoever bought or even touched a Walkman is infected.
That's how Ps1 succeeded, also PS2 and the same will be for PS3. There's no escape.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I'm voting a bad idea purely because I'm impatient and wanted to learn more about it.

 

[cybamerc]

london-boy:

> Momentum? What momentum?

Increasing sales leading up to Halo 2 launch. Best selling system in November and December.

> Errr maybe because Sony knows full well that launches don't mean
> anything.

Sure they do. Certainly a bad launch can be saved and a good launch can be wasted but launching well gives you a competitive advantage. Simple as that.

> Or else PS2 wouldn't have sold as much as it did at launch and for the
> first year

PS2 had no competition. Had it launched opposite Xbox, or even GameCube, things could, and likely would, have looked a lot different. I'm not saying Sony wouldn't be #1 but PS2 would be far less dominant.

 

[cthellis42]

<laughs> That's a good a reason as any, Dave.

 

[Devourer]

PS2 had no competition. Had it launched opposite Xbox, or even GameCube, things could, and likely would, have looked a lot different. I'm not saying Sony wouldn't be #1 but PS2 would be far less dominant.

I think it's not likely. That's just taking everything out of context and comparing them togheter. You are assuming PS2 launched with the very same hardware and the vary same games 20 months later. Too easy. Maybe if Sony waited 20 months, they would have a far superior hardware and far superior looking games, so PS2 would have been far more dominant. Maybe.

Oh and PS2 had competition. It just crushed it.

 

[cthellis42]

For Eru's sake, can we get off that and remain on-topic? It's 100% hypothetical, 100% pointless to debate, and has been done to death before. Not only that, but I think it's infection another thread on the front page as well.

Sheesh...

 

[wco81]

It's a good idea if their hardware specs. aren't nailed down yet and they're willing and able to change them if the competition shows a better design.

But if it's nailed down and things aren't going to change between now and E3, then they will have missed an opportunity to start the hype. They talked about the Media Center, mostly something they were trying to move this last Xmas, not something that they necessarily want people to be excited about for the the coming year.

Supposedly, developers have been working on games for over a year now. So you wouldn't think they could make radical changes to the specs. and still launch this year.

In fact, even waiting until E3 may not give them the flexibility to one-up Sony or Nintendo. Typically, the companies have their big press conferences announcing news one after the other.

So if Sony announced PS3 specs. two days before E3, could MS realistically announce upgraded Xenon specs. like a day or two later?

If OTOH, MS put its cards on the table earlier and drew Sony out into showing their cards, maybe MS could switch up by E3.

Or maybe, MS isn't interested in one-upsmanship and will rely purely on software as they've said.

 

[Sonic]

I honestly believe Microsoft is not yet read with actual hardware to display anything meaninful at a trade show. They'll be more ready by the time GDC comes but then it will probably be nothing more than demos running on souped up PC's. The R500 derivative may be ready but I don't think IBM's part is if rumors regarding the CPU are true.

 

[cthellis42]

I think that as well, which is why my first comment is "doesn't inspire confidence." If they are confident enough to launch at the end of the year they should be confident enough to show off a lot more about it. I don't see any reason for them to hold back otherwise...

And no, I don't think they're holding back simply to be able to respond to Sony at E3. Microsoft would be psychotic if they think they can launch at the end of 2005 well by not nailing down the specifics (and really having done a lot of pre-launch production and gearing up for mass-scale production) by that time. Not if they want good-looking games and a well-fed channel for their machines. Perhaps they would respond with what exactly their "Xbox 2 Ultra" model would look like, but not what their basic game-playing capabilities would be.

 

[arhra]

according to someone at GAF, one of the reasons it wasn't announced at CES was that they hadn't managed to decide what to officially call it, rather than any technical reasons... (although if they had a decent array of tech demos, i can't see why they wouldn't talk about it like Sony talked about the PS2 when it was officially unveiled - just talk about 'the next generation of xbox', and don't announce any official name...)

 

[jvd]

Well i think its a good idea .

I hate getting one spec and then a few months before release the specs get downgraded . Perhaps this way they will have a better idea of what they can actualy launch

 

[London Geezer]

Well i think its a good idea .

I hate getting one spec and then a few months before release the specs get downgraded . Perhaps this way they will have a better idea of what they can actualy launch

Hey, sometimes they get upgraded just before launch!

 

[jvd]

Sometimes they don't though.

THink of it this way . Say they announce the system with a spec of say 500 for the cpus and 500 for the gpus (made up numbers )


THen 3 months later sony says we are launching at 550/600 or something.

Then ms finds its getting better yields so they bump it up to 600/600 .

The fans of the system will spread around that ms was scared it couldn't beat the new sony system so they had to bump clock speeds to compete .