XBox 360 launched in Japan

[<nu>faust]

Other than "the price will triple for the consoles" and "they'll make less first party games at cheaper budgets", where is this overwhelming evidence that an in-generation monopoly of a console manufacturer is bad?

Please note again that no one has said, "there should be one lifetime console manufacturer", which is what it seems people are arguing against. Mostly, I am suggesting only that during a generation of consoles, a single format is preferable to a splintered set of similar formats.

I arrived at this thinking based on the idea that a) innovation happens at generational end points, not in-generation b) multiple consoles splinters development and publishing house budgets and forces risk taking where none need be and c) confuses the market.

On the other hand, the penalty to an in-generational monopoly is that a) the price cuts of a system probably won't come too often--though, it should follow normal and natural market pricing trends.

I dismiss out of hand the notion that first party titles will be made less often or cheaper, since this implies that their sole purpose is market share, as opposed to generating revenue by way of increasing console and unit sales.

Finally, stating that "antitrust laws exist for a reason" is not really an argument, so I don't have a response to that.

.Sis

i do see your point and yes of course a single format would be prefable but i think you do not see how fundamental the notion of "competiton" is to a healthy market structure. Competiton is the main driving force behind innovation and progress in capitalist societies,you are left with uncertanty and "wild capitalism" which inevitably creates a conflict between good of society and the corporations.

 

[scooby_dooby]

The problem with your point SIs, is that it has to be a strong competitor to push both companies forward. Your scenario is just not realistic, you can't have a strong competitor, and at the same time "a single format" it just doesn't work like that.

If it's truly "a single format" then there is no true competition. If there's true competition, there is no single format.

Just look at xbox and ps2, ps2 had 60% or so of the world market? There are still tons of extremely good games on XBOX. This is as close as you can get to having 1 platform, while still have real competiton, and it's still nowhere close.

I say the benefits of having 2 indepentant consoel makers going head to head, far outweighs the benefit of having all games consolidated on one platform, even if it means I have to buy 2 pieces of hardware, or make a choice between them.

 

[Bobbler]

I just don't think there wouold be the same amount of incentive there. I mean, sure Halo 2 will sell alot of copies, and they'll make some money, but won't the vast majority of their income is be from 3rd party royalties?

In this scenario you have 3 companies, all collecting a ton good royalties, so they have big fat bottom lines, alot of black ink, and everyone is happy. What the incentive to go out, basically be a glorified publisher and make a few more million dollars? When you're making 100's of millions from milking 3rd paty game developers?

Without knowing the hard numbers it's hard to say, but it seems to be the money they make from selling the game titles must be a drop in the bucket compared to the money they make from royalties. Sure there's still potential there to make money, but only off of game sales, much less reward

A lot of the money that is made by royalties is soaked up by initial hardware costs and R&D for future projects. I think there might be a misunderstanding -- I'm proposing a situation like how DVD is today -- the companies with patent royalties on DVD are making peanuts compared to those pumping out actual content on the discs... MS, Sony, and Nintendo would have to very much switch to content companies rather than concerning themselves with the hardware and royalties if they really wanted to be successful (they'd gain money from royalties, but to really succeed they'd have to make games just like any other third party).

I know my examples have sort of jumped around a bit, so I don't blame anyone for missing what I'm trying to say (frankly, I'm starting to confuse myself at this point). And just for clarity, I don't think this type of situation I'm proposing would work until content development is very much the limitation of the graphics we see on the screen (rather than an easily hittable hardware limitation), to the point where it would be detrimental to a development studio to try to max out the hardware's performance by spending more money/time on it (that's the point where hardware differences won't matter, so a single platform would truly be the best bet for an extended period of tiem)

 

[ERP]

The royalties on a piece of console software are MUCH higher than the royalties a film studio plays to press a DVD.

When your making of the order of $5->$10 on every piece of software manufactured on your platform (not sold), you're own software can be seen as a bonus, or even as a loss leader to sell systems.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Also you can bet that in a scenario like this N. Sony and MS would be charging developers a very heft royalty rate to develop on the only system in town. What other choice do they have? it's another downside to this situation, royalties would become much higher as developers are faced with no options, and the console makers would take advantage of it.

Why spend 20million of your own money to make a game that sells at $60/unit. When you could not spend anything, and make $20/game on 1000's of 3rd party games that will sell hundreds of millions of copies combined.

 

[Bobbler]

The problem with your point SIs, is that it has to be a strong competitor to push both companies forward. Your scenario is just not realistic, you can't have a strong competitor, and at the same time "a single format" it just doesn't work like that.

If it's truly "a single format" then there is no true competition. If there's true competition, there is no single format.

Just look at xbox and ps2, ps2 had 60% or so of the world market? There are still tons of extremely good games on XBOX. This is as close as you can get to having 1 platform, while still have real competiton, and it's still nowhere close.

I say the benefits of having 2 indepentant consoel makers going head to head, far outweighs the benefit of having all games consolidated on one platform, even if it means I have to buy 2 pieces of hardware, or make a choice between them.

I think you're still stuck with the notion that competition between consoles is what makes consoles good, when in reality it's the software competition that differentiates them (and as long as there is more than one company making software, this will always happen). The hardware is rather moot in all this -- the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 on a platform level really doesn't matter and is arguably negligable, as the only thing that really differentiates them is the content they provide... and if we could consolidate the platform and provide all the content right there, we'd be set. After 5+ years a new console (similar to how DVD was decided to be the successor of VHS), and we'd all be happy again -- of course my plan doesn't really work until, as I've said a few times now, content creation is the limitation rather than hardware.

I know you were responding to Sis in this post, but I'm trying to explain a way that a single console (monopoly, if you want to call it that) would be far beneficial -- exactly the same way having 1 next gen disc format is beneficial to the consumer. Each generation interval a new consortium would be formed (could even involve several different companies than the previous generation) and they'd get publishers to join the consortium and hopefully the entire industry would agrees on things (like what happened with DVD -- in the end it was pretty much well agreed upon) and we end up with a new console/platform/format to play our trusty games on.

The natural progression of the market seems to want a single platform per generation, and we're here trying to fight against it (at least mainly Sony, MS, and Nintendo are).

 

[Bobbler]

The royalties on a piece of console software are MUCH higher than the royalties a film studio plays to press a DVD.

When your making of the order of $5->$10 on every piece of software manufactured on your platform (not sold), you're own software can be seen as a bonus, or even as a loss leader to sell systems.

This would have to change though -- what I'm saying is the consule industry would have to change more to how movies work. Movie studios pay peanuts to pump their discs out on DVDs, and that's how it should be in the world of games too. There should be a consortium/forum that controls the format (which would include the content companies, so they don't get screwed), not a single entity.

 

[winstonsmith1978]

This would have to change though -- what I'm saying is the consule industry would have to change more to how movies work. Movie studios pay peanuts to pump their discs out on DVDs, and that's how it should be in the world of games too. There should be a consortium/forum that controls the format (which would include the content companies, so they don't get screwed), not a single entity.

I like this concept a lot and what is really interesting about it, is that the market might force something like this to happen naturally.

I don't think its even possible for another company to take on the big 3 at this point. so how would someone like samsung or apple or anyone else get into the industry?

All they would have to do is create a consortium/forum, like you already said, and make it easier on the developers. This sort of thing might be possible and might create a console for everyone including consumers and developers

 

[expletive]

I think you're still stuck with the notion that competition between consoles is what makes consoles good, when in reality it's the software competition that differentiates them (and as long as there is more than one company making software, this will always happen). The hardware is rather moot in all this -- the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 on a platform level really doesn't matter and is arguably negligable, as the only thing that really differentiates them is the content they provide... and if we could consolidate the platform and provide all the content right there, we'd be set. After 5+ years a new console (similar to how DVD was decided to be the successor of VHS), and we'd all be happy again -- of course my plan doesn't really work until, as I've said a few times now, content creation is the limitation rather than hardware.

I know you were responding to Sis in this post, but I'm trying to explain a way that a single console (monopoly, if you want to call it that) would be far beneficial -- exactly the same way having 1 next gen disc format is beneficial to the consumer. Each generation interval a new consortium would be formed (could even involve several different companies than the previous generation) and they'd get publishers to join the consortium and hopefully the entire industry would agrees on things (like what happened with DVD -- in the end it was pretty much well agreed upon) and we end up with a new console/platform/format to play our trusty games on.

The natural progression of the market seems to want a single platform per generation, and we're here trying to fight against it (at least mainly Sony, MS, and Nintendo are).

If you look at whats happening in the HD optical space right now you can see why even a consortium isnt even a sure fire win for the consumer. The BR group, until threatened by HD-DVD defections, was a very unfriendly consumer product(i.e. the recent inclusion of MMC). These conrtiums are often a good 'ol boys network where they exchange favors and just figure out how to split up the money. They will give consumers 'just enough' for us to buy the thing but the rest is all for them.

I've stated over and over again but for the record

competition = good for consumers

Why we are wasting all this time to re-write the rules economics 101 is beyond me.

 

[Bobbler]

It isn't rewriting economics. This type of stuff has been around for a long time... and does today. Content distribution is mostly what benefits the most from a unified approach. It's the reason why we don't have power lines from tons of different companies, phone lines, cable lines, multiple disc standards (at least we try to prevent it) -- any medium for content distribution works best when it is agreed upon... because it's a pointless battle that companies can waste resources on.

It'd be a similar situation if we had multiple different types of fuels commonly used -- what if we had 3-4 different kinds of incompatible gasolines for cars? that's exactly the same situation -- competition there is only frustrating and pointless... it's a lot better for consumers that all cars use the same kind of gas. This doesn't break any economic rules -- there is still plenty of competition (well gas might be a bad example, because its a finite resource and more of an oligopoly -- a format like DVD isn't a limited resource and the royalty rates (barrel of oil prices) don't fluctuate on a whim).

I think I've pretty much said everything I can on this topic -- sure kept me awake at work though.

 

[expletive]

It isn't rewriting economics. This type of stuff has been around for a long time... and does today. Content distribution is mostly what benefits the most from a unified approach. It's the reason why we don't have power lines from tons of different companies, phone lines, cable lines, multiple disc standards (at least we try to prevent it) -- any medium for content distribution works best when it is agreed upon... because it's a pointless battle that companies can waste resources on.

It'd be a similar situation if we had multiple different types of fuels commonly used -- what if we had 3-4 different kinds of incompatible gasolines for cars? that's exactly the same situation -- competition there is only frustrating and pointless... it's a lot better for consumers that all cars use the same kind of gas. This doesn't break any economic rules -- there is still plenty of competition (well gas might be a bad example, because its a finite resource and more of an oligopoly -- a format like DVD isn't a limited resource and the royalty rates (barrel of oil prices) don't fluctuate on a whim).

I think I've pretty much said everything I can on this topic -- sure kept me awake at work though.

Agreed this horse is beaten to death. I cant even find my original point buried underneath all of these comments.

 

[one]

I kinda chuckle as this offtopic monopoly discussion is free from the real-world situation where even though the game console world becomes a monopoly you can still play videogames on this platform called PC...:smile:

Now on-topic material, here comes the hardware sales in Japan Dec 5 - 11 by Media Create.

http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

DS 299,328
PSP 86,403
PS2 45,893
Xbox360 43,970
GC 12,212
GBASP 10,456
GBM 8,326
GBA 396
Xbox 164

 

[dubyateeeff]

Now on-topic material, here comes the hardware sales in Japan Dec 5 - 11 by Media Create.

http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

DS 299,328
PSP 86,403
PS2 45,893
Xbox360 43,970
GC 12,212
GBASP 10,456
GBM 8,326
GBA 396
Xbox 164

Oh, so few GBAs and Xboxes sold that the buyers could be mentioned by name

Also these numbers shows how Nintendo is doing a tremendous job with the portable systems. Gameboy Micro seems to be a waste though.

 

[Branduil]

I kinda chuckle as this offtopic monopoly discussion is free from the real-world situation where even though the game console world becomes a monopoly you can still play videogames on this platform called PC...:smile:

Now on-topic material, here comes the hardware sales in Japan Dec 5 - 11 by Media Create.

http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

DS 299,328
PSP 86,403
PS2 45,893
Xbox360 43,970
GC 12,212
GBASP 10,456
GBM 8,326
GBA 396
Xbox 164

The DS outsold all the competition combined by nearly 100,000.

 

[Bill]

I think you're still stuck with the notion that competition between consoles is what makes consoles good, when in reality it's the software competition that differentiates them (and as long as there is more than one company making software, this will always happen). The hardware is rather moot in all this -- the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 on a platform level really doesn't matter and is arguably negligable, as the only thing that really differentiates them is the content they provide... and if we could consolidate the platform and provide all the content right there, we'd be set. After 5+ years a new console (similar to how DVD was decided to be the successor of VHS), and we'd all be happy again -- of course my plan doesn't really work until, as I've said a few times now, content creation is the limitation rather than hardware.

This is completely wrong, the hardware is a lot more important than the software.

Sony does not lose money the first three years to make better software. However they do lose a lot of money to put out better hardware.

the difference between Xbox360 and PS3 on a platform level really doesn't matter and is arguably negligable

That's unknown at this point. However even if true, it would have it's own set of consequences. A "hardware tie" would be an outcome of itself, but not the only possible one, hardly.

 

[<nu>faust]

It isn't rewriting economics. This type of stuff has been around for a long time... and does today. Content distribution is mostly what benefits the most from a unified approach. It's the reason why we don't have power lines from tons of different companies, phone lines, cable lines, multiple disc standards (at least we try to prevent it) -- any medium for content distribution works best when it is agreed upon... because it's a pointless battle that companies can waste resources on.

It'd be a similar situation if we had multiple different types of fuels commonly used -- what if we had 3-4 different kinds of incompatible gasolines for cars? that's exactly the same situation -- competition there is only frustrating and pointless... it's a lot better for consumers that all cars use the same kind of gas. This doesn't break any economic rules -- there is still plenty of competition (well gas might be a bad example, because its a finite resource and more of an oligopoly -- a format like DVD isn't a limited resource and the royalty rates (barrel of oil prices) don't fluctuate on a whim).

I think I've pretty much said everything I can on this topic -- sure kept me awake at work though.

firstly we did ,we do and we will have competing "formats" of gasoline(ever heard of diesel?),cable lines and software protocols..etc.As long as there will be innovation and capitalism we will have competing standarts( even if it's not the most efficient way )

Secondly there is a huge difference between a company becoming a monopoly and all the companies in a sector agreeing on a unified format for good&services delivery. Of course it would be the best case senario(and certanly the most efficient option) if multiple companies in an industry agree on a unified format but still continue to compete among each other to deliver the best service to the customer (to maximize their profits). For example,of course it good be the best for the consumers if toshiba and sony could agree on a unified next gen dvd format and still compete with each other to create the one with the most features and the cheapest,we wouldn't have this stupid format wars again and probably we would pay less for our nextgen dvd players.

But when it comes to the issue of monopolies it's a totally different story.Let me give you an actual example, the reason that many local legislative forces in US(pennsylvania being an example) forcing electric companies to broken up into smaller pieces( deregulating ) is that they belive without competition the market can not sustain an healthy state and provide the best for the people. Some people argue that monopolies are natural outcome of markets and they should be allowed to act freely in a capitalist market but i'd say this as a philadelphian my bill did go down after deregulation and i'd love to have an option to change my electric company with just one phone call in case if they screw me over.

Right now the reason that sony,nintendo,ms are working so hard to please gamers,creating the best possible product&services and securing the best content for their platform is that they know that is the only way to maximize their profits.They also know that the moment they stop trying their best, their competiton will gain market share, that's why they spend millions of dollars on R&d,marketing,customer support,that's why it's good that we have options.Do you really think my main man kutaragi would try this hard if he did know we had no choice but buying his machine anyway ?

 

[Mythos]

Right now the reason that sony,nintendo,ms are working so hard to please gamers,creating the best possible product&services and securing the best content for their platform is that they know that is the only way to maximize their profits.They also know that the moment they stop trying their best, their competiton will gain market share, that's why they spend millions of dollars on R&d,marketing,customer support,that's why it's good that we have options.Do you really think my main man kutaragi would try this hard if he did know we had no choice but buying his machine anyway ?

Well for some industries monopolies server a separate function. I can see where their is a necessity for certain things that monopolies are bad for say like gas or phone service. However, when their is an industry where a product is less of a neccessity then even if there are monopolies those companies are still in competition. The console games industry is such....If say like Ninentdo was a monopoly then they still have to provide a product that people want to buy and the proper content or else people will go elsewhere or if another company can provide that function.

 

[mckmas8808]

So we get real numbers and you guys still want to talk about the monopoly thing.

 

[randycat99]

This was the evade and divert strategy. ...get derailed onto anything other than MS not off to a good start in JPN.

 

[Sis]

This was the evade and divert strategy. ...get derailed onto anything other than MS not off to a good start in JPN.

Eh, the monopoly discussion was far more interesting and thought provoking than the numbers, which we already knew. Basically, 'News Flash: Xbox 360 not taking Japan by storm'.

However, by all means let's discuss this further. I'll start: "Wow. M$ really screwed up! Sony FTW." [insert image of Owl with "Or RLY?" caption]



.Sis