Topic: The everything Xbox thread

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@Ralizah If Microsoft sold the One cheaper than PS4 and didn't say up-front "we're charging you for used games and watching you through our camera, and you need high end internet in America in 2013" it would have been a resounding success on the SportsTVSportsTV strategy.

As it was it was a more expensive box that the rumble (from the media!!) was about it being spyware, anti-consumer, no sharing, and eventually also about it being weaker. It didn't fail because of SportsTVSportsTV. It failed in spite of that.

Among the internet nerds, Sony was 51% of the way to Greatness pre-show E3 with the 'this is how you share" video. They got 90% of the way there when they said $399.99. I dropped the presentation and ran to preorder at that precise moment and got 2 preorders in at 2 stores. The mass market combined the internet rumbling of "XBox is a meme" and "PS4 is awesome" compared priced tags, and there wasn't much decision to be made.

If "XBox was a meme" and was $299.99 things would have been different and PS4 would not have been the casual market champion.

This time XBox is not a meme, and is $299.99. With positive internet buzz for those consumers to search. That's a very different scenario. Of course for those that want used games/sharing, that might still be a dead even $500 battle, but it won't be quite so lopsided which way to go this time. Slightly winning the $500 battle but heavily losing the budget market still devastates their total install base.

Take a look at attach rates from when they report them. Does that look like a massive casual install base, or a massive core install base to you? I don't mean to say they don't have tons of core players that buy tons of games. I mean a lot of that huge install base consists of casuals that buy few games. So much of it that even the heavy buyers can't fully offset those "one game sales" customers. Because that is, and always has been a massive chunk of their market. And that is because they're always cheapest (except PS3 most of the gen.)

I don't disagree with enthusiasts adopting and positive buzz, of course. But the point is this time BOTH brands will have early adopting enthusiasts, and BOTH have that positive buzz. It's not like last time where the only XBox buzz was negative and how PS4 saved gaming from MS/EA's evil vision. And conversely even great positive buzz can't save a price/value failure. Even WiiU sold out at launch and hit great numbers with enthusiasts. It was every month after that that was a disaster.

I agree if both disc consoles come in at $500, PS probably has a reasonable advantage ( I wouldn't say substantial) specifically for the disc focused market. The question, then, is how much of the market is or isn't disc focused at this point in time. And with XB having a strong internet buzz on performance, and X benefiting somewhat from the very positive buzz around S (and Game Pass), I don't think that advantage is as unconditional as it was last time. And losing that massive install base for the casual users hurts them in other ways, including subscriptions.

They'll be "fine" but they want to lead. The question is do they want to lead badly enough they're willing to cut the $500 price tag, and also cut the digital price tag by association? Will the cut the $500 price tag but leave the digital version to hang as a terrible value at too close a price next to it? Will they cut deep on digital and leave the $500 price tag and try to enter the low price war? That's where it gets interesting. I think PS "fans" tend to overthink their brand advantage. Yeah, PS has Miles Morales, but XBox can advertise Sports Sports Sports - Mobile xbox - all for $15/mo! Cyberpunk running at best console specs! For the mainstream that's not irrelevant.

And seriously, that whole PS3 outsold 360 meme is about as hardcore PS fanboy as one can possibly go. It's corporate spin designed to be impressive, while being factual, but not being intellectually honest. It's such a completely useless metric. They "outsold" the competition after the competition discontinued the product it was competing against, only after they repackaged it as an ultra-budget low cost product, after its generation was done. And even that only sold because unlike the XBone, PS4 was not backward compatible with the PS3 exclusives, so that bargain basement model was a cheap way for anyone who didn't actually want to pay for a PS3 to play those exclusives, meanwhile XBOne was building in that backward compatibility for exclusives. You'd almost have to combine 360 and One sales to compare against the PS3 sales once the new consoles were out, as One offered a path to play the Gen 7 exclusives, while 4 did not and you had to buy the plastic box. But it doesn't mean it drove additional sales. That's not "clawing their way back", that's attrition, and not very profitable attrition. You couldn't even compare the same data if 1S stayed on shelves for years at $150 and ended up not outselling PS4, because there's incentive for anyone to skip one and go right to Series, since it plays all the same games. Something that wasn't true for PS4.

It's a silly metric that sounds good in corporate speak but doesn't really say a think about what that really meant for the company's analysts. PS3 undersold. PS3 Mini added to some generational unit sales at a minimum profit. It's about as good as MS listing their subscribers without reporting console sales.

We can talk about a PS brand advantage all we want, but at the end of the day when all the FIFA sales go to Series S, Sony isn't going to be very thrilled looking at significantly lower unit sales figures, which is what they've been hanging their hats on. Even if they don't challenge that price and stick to their guns, you can bet your bottom dollar they're scrambling at this moment trying to figure out how/if they could.