Xbox Series X [XBSX] [Release November 10 2020]

[Seanspeed]

Most of this environmental stuff is nonsense IMO, but that doesn't change the fact that physical is the wave of the future.

When AAA games cost $300 million (1000% increase in 20 years) to develop and the console market has only expanded by 100% in the last 20 years we can thank digital delivery and mtx for why AAA games aren't $120 at retail right now.

Dude, no man. lol

Digital is not what is 'saving' game prices. lol Big game publishers, ya know - the ones who made the push to raise game prices for Gen 9 - were doing fantastic before this already. There was never any NEED for the rise in pricing, they just figured 'next gen' was a good opportunity to make a shift in pricing normalization. And it worked. Cuz gamers are generally sheepish idiots.

To be fair, the jump from $60 to $70 actually received a fair bit of backlash in initially, right up til Sony raised their prices for 1st party titles, at which point suddenly everybody started defending it and saying it was necessary and that we should all be grateful that it wasn't even worse.

Physical barely costs anything. And you'd have to be insanely, absurdly naive to believe that a switch to digital is somehow helping console gamers save money. It's very literally the opposite, which is why Sony offers such a heavy discount for PS5 disc-less model. They know full well they'll MORE than make up that in future game sales since average buying price will be higher.

Good lord folks. There's bootlicking and then there's trying to deepthroat the boot. lol

 

[AlphaWolf]

Physical barely costs anything.

Citation required.

 

[Seanspeed]

Citation required.

Do I really need to prove that mass produced discs and boxes aren't expensive to produce? Seriously? Y'all really are just making arguments to argue.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Do I really need to prove that mass produced discs and boxes aren't expensive to produce? Seriously? Y'all really are just making arguments to argue.

When they produce them do they appear in your collection by magic? They actually need to be transported and distributed by persons who actually get paid to do it.

 

[Seanspeed]

When they produce them do they appear in your collection by magic? They actually need to be transported and distributed by persons who actually get paid to do it.

I didn't say they were free, but good lord, how much are you imagining this actually costs when they are produced in such huge quantities?

I honestly cant believe I'm having to argue this. It truly doesn't feel like I'm having a good faith argument, and more just in a 'debate challenge' where some of you will literally say whatever talking point you think you can get away with to 'win' the argument.

I dont know how to more emphatically stress that games are getting more expensive DESPITE the bigger shift to digital gaming. It has nothing to do with the high costs of physical games. And this ridiculous idea that maybe if physical games go away, suddenly game prices will drop. You'd truly have to be an idiot to believe that. And I dont believe any of you are idiots. You're just stubborn and argumentative.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Do I really need to prove that mass produced discs and boxes aren't expensive to produce? Seriously? Y'all really are just making arguments to argue.

If just producing the products were all it was that wouldn't be too bad. But there's also shipping and retailer margins. And don't forget costs associated with physical copies that don't sell but were manufactured, packaged and shipped.

Depending on retailer bargaining power and whether they have to rely on a 3rd party distributor as well as the size of the publisher, that can eat up anywhere from 15-50% of the price of a new game.

Back in 2015, when the cost of sales (manufacturing and packaging, shipping and distribution, retailer margins, etc.) were all far cheaper than they are today, EA would make 2x as much profit off of a digital sale versus a packaged goods sale.

Analysis: EA's Digital Profit Margins Twice That Of Retail Sales (And Why That Matters To Gamers)

Here are the hard numbers explaining why digital is so crucial to publishers.

www.gameinformer.com

The cost of sales for physical good is extremely high compared to digital.

Regards,
SB

 

[Seanspeed]

If just producing the products were all it was that wouldn't be too bad. But there's also shipping and retailer margins. And don't forget costs associated with physical copies that don't sell but were manufactured, packaged and shipped.

Depending on retailer bargaining power and whether they have to rely on a 3rd party distributor as well as the size of the publisher, that can eat up anywhere from 15-50% of the price of a new game.

Back in 2015, when the cost of sales (manufacturing and packaging, shipping and distribution, retailer margins, etc.) were all far cheaper than they are today, EA would make 2x as much profit off of a digital sale versus a packaged goods sale.

Analysis: EA's Digital Profit Margins Twice That Of Retail Sales (And Why That Matters To Gamers)

Here are the hard numbers explaining why digital is so crucial to publishers.

www.gameinformer.com

The cost of sales for physical good is extremely high compared to digital.

Regards,
SB

Oh my god. lol

The reason that digital sales have such higher margins isn't cuz producing and distributing physical copies is so expensive, it's cuz they can control the pricing on the storefronts and completely eliminate used game sales.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I didn't say they were free, but good lord, how much are you imagining this actually costs when they are produced in such huge quantities?

I honestly cant believe I'm having to argue this. It truly doesn't feel like I'm having a good faith argument, and more just in a 'debate challenge' where some of you will literally say whatever talking point you think you can get away with to 'win' the argument.

I dont know how to more emphatically stress that games are getting more expensive DESPITE the bigger shift to digital gaming. It has nothing to do with the high costs of physical games. And this ridiculous idea that maybe if physical games go away, suddenly game prices will drop. You'd truly have to be an idiot to believe that. And I dont believe any of you are idiots. You're just stubborn and argumentative.

Yes you need to produce evidence of arguments in question. And cost is several dollars for a disc to retail not including shrinkage and waste.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

As I said earlier, game costs are up 1000% and the market is only 100% larger. Something needs to give. Physical media is it. Publishers make more revenue digitally, so they can afford all those AAA graphics. It's simple economics.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Do I really need to prove that mass produced discs and boxes aren't expensive to produce? Seriously? Y'all really are just making arguments to argue.

Yes. You can't expect anyone to take any argument you make on face value even if it seems obvious to you. Google says:

5%, £3.50 for "manufacturing".

Or from 2010:

The cost of making, packaging and shipping game discs to stores carves up another $4.

Your assertion 'how can it be expensive for mass produced plastic discs' is akin to saying 'how can silicon chips be expensive when they are made of sand'. Costs include paying for the manufacturing plant and its profits, paying the printers and their profits, paying the shipping company costs and profits, paying the store and its profits. Hence a 2 cents piece of plastic costs $3.50 to turn into a meaningful product.

Going forwards I hope you ensure you back your arguments up with meaningful evidence to make a proper discussion rather than just repeating, "come on guys, it's obvious, just take my word for it and don't argue with me."

 

[Nisaaru]

Do I really need to prove that mass produced discs and boxes aren't expensive to produce? Seriously? Y'all really are just making arguments to argue.

Production, storage, shipping and reseller profits. Digital doesn't have all these sunken costs and loss of profits.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yes. Remember that when you add all that up, it's at least $25 per game. On a 10 million selling AAA game it's $250 million dollars. That takes that $300 million game if distributed under the old regime 20 years ago and gets the budget down to an equivalent of $50 million. Now the equivalent budget of that game is only 100% more than 20 years ago and is in line with the 100% increase in the market. ie. cutting out retailers and saving costs on plastic/delivery is keeping game prices down in the $70 range. Otherwise we'd be looking at $95+ games. That $25 has to come from somewhere.

Just because someone doesn't like something, because it annoys them, it doesn't mean their arguments are correct.

I realize that the promise of digital delivery was originally that consumers were going to be able to keep that $25, but consumers received that $25 in a different way - big budget AAA games that would have broke publishers in an earlier time.

 

[eastmen]

Yes. You can't expect anyone to take any argument you make on face value even if it seems obvious to you. Google says:

5%, £3.50 for "manufacturing".

Or from 2010:

The cost of making, packaging and shipping game discs to stores carves up another $4.

Your assertion 'how can it be expensive for mass produced plastic discs' is akin to saying 'how can silicon chips be expensive when they are made of sand'. Costs include paying for the manufacturing plant and its profits, paying the printers and their profits, paying the shipping company costs and profits, paying the store and its profits. Hence a 2 cents piece of plastic costs $3.50 to turn into a meaningful product.

Going forwards I hope you ensure you back your arguments up with meaningful evidence to make a proper discussion rather than just repeating, "come on guys, it's obvious, just take my word for it and don't argue with me."

People underestimate so much in terms of how products get to us. But not only that, no one has talked about side costs involved with physical media. Stores like Gamestop / Target and so on charge for placement in the store also. Sony and nintendo pay to be in the front of the store for example, they also pay to keep the size of their sections. Sometimes depending on the deal created big box stores like best buy and target are able to send back unsold inventory adding even more cost to the back end.

People think its just the 25 cents or something the bluray costs but its so much more than that. Even just adding a second cost drives the price up further than the cost of that disc. You are going to need more expensive packaging and of course the weight increases which will increase shipping costs. Sure its not much but when you are shipping hundreds of thousands or millions of a product it adds up.

That is also just today. We have games that are already requiring multiple discs , what happens next generation? What happens when we go to 3 or 4 or 5 bluray discs? What happens as tv/movie bluray discs start to exit manufacturing and plants start to close? Why would companies make multiple discs of outdated information anyway? You spend all this money creating and shipping these discs and the information on them already need large patches.

To make matters worse there isn't another extremely cheap media format. The only thing I can think for them to do is move to a more expensive physical format and make physical copies into more of a collectors edition like records are today. Maybe MS is on the right track with their storage cards.

The way I can see it working out is say COD 2025 comes out at $70 for the digital version, then a collectors physical edition on a 512meg storage card at $100 or something.

 

[Nisaaru]

The way I can see it working out is say COD 2025 comes out at $70 for the digital version, then a collectors physical edition on a 512meg storage card at $100 or something.

IMHO collector's editions will die like DVD/Bluray collector's editions because people will simply lose interests to pay for dust collectors filling up their living space. I did and my physical movie collection is quite substantial mostly bought during 2000-2012 and then it just died because of digital.

 

[eastmen]

IMHO collector's editions will die like DVD/Bluray collector's editions because people will simply lose interests to pay for dust collectors filling up their living space. I did and my physical movie collection is quite substantial mostly bought during 2000-2012 and then it just died because of digital.

I had a similar experiance going from about 2500 dvds down to 30 blurays and 15 hd-dvds in my collection. The amount of space I had gotten back was massive.

However I think there will still be a demand for collector like editions. People like statues and other things. But maybe now without having to account for the cost of the game in the pricing they can create much nicer things

But like I said , I think physical editions are going to have to increase in price in the future and be treated like a premium edition of the game or it will be done only by companies like limited run games

 

[orangpelupa]

The way I can see it working out is say COD 2025 comes out at $70 for the digital version, then a collectors physical edition on a 512meg storage card at $100 or something.

Nah, it'll come with empty steel book case, and a digital download code.

Some collectors edition already did that

 

[Liandry]

What do you guys think about info from leaks about Xbox? Because I'm not shure what MS have any worth strategy in long term. They already don't do anything worth for some years, except XSX hardware and software and also not everything was made as it should be. I think with that strategy they have no chance against Sony this gen, and that also could hit them hard next gen.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I think their strategy is clear: GamePass. Currently 30 million subscribers and likely able to add 10 million per year if their content delivery gets sorted out. The Xbox Hardware is just a GP delivery mechanism to MS.

They aren't really trying to win the hardware war anymore. They just want 100 million GP subscribers on 60 million consoles and 40 million PCs + Mobile at some point.

If they succeed they will continue. If not, they will likely go 3rd party with their 40+ studios.

If Starfield, Forza(s), Halo, Gears, CoD, Diablo, Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Hellblade, Avowed, Fable, Perfect Dark, Fallout, World of Warcraft, Star Craft, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Flight Simulator, Outer Worlds, Clockwork Revolution, South of Midnight, Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, Psychonauts, State of Decay and Wasteland + assorted 3rd party stuff that MS pays for like Persona series etc... can't entice people to GP, then it's hopeless for MS.

My opinion is that there is a critical mass point of awesome content on GP that eventually becomes irresistible to 100+ million gamers. We'll see....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What do you guys think about info from leaks about Xbox? Because I'm not shure what MS have any worth strategy in long term. They already don't do anything worth for some years, except XSX hardware and software and also not everything was made as it should be. I think with that strategy they have no chance against Sony this gen, and that also could hit them hard next gen.

We don't know how up-to-date those leaks are. But obviously GamePass is their plan as they've already publicly stated they've lost the hardware race and aren't really into competing consoles. The latest figures on GP suggest it's presently good income (though profits are unknowable).

 

[Tkumpathenurpahl]

The mindset of all data and no human flourishes is one that's deleterious to everything it touches. And MS will spiral unless they eschew it.

Gamepass is solid, but as Scott Galloway pointed out years ago in one of his "in the digital age" videos, the trend of streaming content has long been a matter of throwing good money after bad, in the hope that it'll become a defacto monopoly whereby you can then charge whatever you want. And it keeps not working, with streaming services taking loss after loss. Hell, it took a pandemic to make Netflix profitable for a handful of quarters.

Maybe MS will crack the code. But I'm not convinced having all of their eggs in this one basket is wise. Especially as we may well be seeing something of a sea change, in which consolidation and monopolies will face increasing scrutiny and challenges over the coming decades.

Hopefully they pivot, and try to compete in areas other than Gamepass, because the console industry can't afford to only be Sony and Nintendo. I'm just not convinced they can move past the rich kid mentality of flashing cash to be popular.

Remember, Microsoft, you're making art, not just metric generation mechanisms.