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$1200 Cheap!
Pinky3 writes: "The LA Times is reporting that Microsoft is encouraging retailers to bundle Microsoft games with each XBox. "Beginning next month, many retailers will be requiring customers to pay from $499 to as much as $1,200 to reserve an Xbox console that, like it or not, will come bundled with games, peripherals and warranties. The reason: Microsoft will provide additional marketing money to merchants that agree to include the software giant's games in their bundles. That's because Microsoft's games carry higher profit margins for the Redmond, Wash., company than those published by third-party companies such as Activision Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc.""
This is a prime example of 'tying', the number one issue the states and DOJ have with Microsoft. It's just another anti-competitive tactic. I'm not surprised at all. This is very typical behavior.
Gatesco wants
Desktop PC Market - 99%
Internet - 99%
Videogames - 75% (Expected)
World Domination - 75%
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Just another reason to go with a PS2 or a Gamecube, I guess. Don't retailers understand that forcing people to pay a hundred extra bucks for games that not everyone wants, instead of letting the customer choose these things is bad? If enough stores go along with this nonsense, the $299 sticker price for Xbox means nothing, and will end up being a huge boost to the competition. When you buy a car, you don't have to add an extra $1000 for the included yacht.
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No doubt-- its quite unfair that they do this-- but, again, its not suprising. I, myself, am not going to get an XBox, and this would be further reinforcement to my decision.
No offense to you guys who like the XBox-- but compared to the Gamecube, (which is made by the very experienced Nintendo,) its sorely lacking.
This is not an encouragement to boycott XBox, but i don't think that this sort of thing should be endorsed. Nintendo . as far as i can remember, always let you buy a bare system (which is to say, one without a game) and if you couldn't, you didn't usually pay much more than 40 or so dollars extra. Sega didn't do that, (correct me if i am wrong) and not even Sony. Microsoft is obviously inexperienced in this market, and hopefully they'll learn a lesson with this.
This could go into a whole "why big business is bad" or something, but i don't want it to. Its just an example of how Microsoft is screwing up because of their inexperience in the console market.
Just my two cents =)
This isn't a redundant post; I just set my threshold to 6.
Who would actually pay 1200 bucks for a game console system? I didn't even spend that on my computer which probably has a bit more power and will run a lot more games. I think Microsoft is definatly pricing themselves out of the competition and hopefully the XBox will die a miserable death because of it. Hmmm, but maybe not after all, their operating systems are way overpriced, but they seem to be doing well in that market. I suppose it just depends on the marketing.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
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I'm struggling to think of what else to write... If you don't want to buy the bundle then ... DON'T! Get the unbundled version. Is this that difficult to comprehend? Every other game maker creates bundles which are cheaper than all the components seperately -- why single out MS for this behavi- oh, I forgot, it's MS.
Everyone else does this. To pre-order a Gameboy Advance from EB you had to buy it and 2 games at the same time. I have no doubt it'll be the same way with the new consoles.
Console makers LOSE MONEY on the console itself. They only makem oney on the games. This makes a lot of sense. I'm sure you'll be able to get one without games if you want, just look around.
And the Gartner group isn't that type of company? That's their expertise. If anyone knows the things you stated above, it would be a company such as the Gartner Group, a company whose sole mission it is to know such facts. I will agree that a giant company such as Microsoft *should* also know these facts, but based on some of their past marketing mistakes, it's pretty obvious that in some cases they haven't a clue.
Console manufacturers have been doing this for years. Nintendo did this most recently with the Gameboy Advanced. It's Standard Operating Procedure. If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's not like you don't have options.
"Loyal Xbox fans will have to dole out hundreds of dollars more than they expected to secure an Xbox," said Geoff Keighley, editor of Gameslice, an online game site.
Loyal Xbox fans? You mean all the ones who bought the previous version of the Xbox and played all the games that came out for it?
Folks, this is really simple: if you don't like the price, then don't buy it! If still you want one, wait a month or two until it drops in price and retailers start selling the base units without all the crap. If you *really* want one and can't wait, then don't complain about getting screwed over.
Game consoles are one area where Microsoft is the newcomer and underdog. They're spending a LOT of money to make sure that the Xbox is a success. If you don't like these sorts of tactics and want them to stop, send them a message by not buying the thing. MS will certainly notice if there's no great demand for their product, despite all their spending on advertising.
Tux Racer?
xbill?
Please....
Oh wait, it didn't.
Although, OTOH, the NeoGeo is living a new, vibrant life in the wonderful land of Emulation.
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The PS2 DID NOT do this... some merchants decided to do this, but it was NOT pushed by Sony...
I had no problem getting the PS2 from Walmart without any additional purchases. Circuit City bundled that awful Fireworks game... But this was the merchant's choice...
In this case, Microsoft is forcing the merchants to do the bundling.
Do you need buy.com Coupons ?
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
But it's not CE based. Operating System: Windows 2000 Kernel, DirectX API
But the Gamecube will support HDTV outta the box, with MS it might be an add-on. Not that I want to help Mario and the Princess pick the most beautiful flowers, so no one crys at the garden party, in HDTV. Still Nintendo...if only I could expect Ikari warriors in stunning HDTV.... Nintendo is what you get when you listen to people who admonish others to "think about the children."
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Gamestop
The lowest level is 600 dollars, which seems a tad insane, even for the hardcore players who usually pre-order...
:wq
Wasn't the GameCube going to launch at $99??
Is the X-Box really worth 12 GameCubes?
At $1200, I wonder if even Bill Gates would bother getting one of these shitty X-Boxes. The games are by far worse than any other console. It got totally slammed by the press at the last E3.
Most hardcore gamers think the X-Box will turn out to be a poor console. So are Microsoft really expecting "casual gamers" to fork out $1200 for a console?
It seems Microsoft is approximately one target audience short of a commercially successful console.
On a whim a few weeks ago, I decided to shop around for a Game Boy Advance. Walking around in my local mall, I noticed a bunch of stores had signage up promoting the Advance, but were out of stock. Finally, the EBX had a couple of actual product boxes on display.
Me: Are those Game Boy Advance boxes for real, or are they just boxes?
Salesperson: (very smug) Yes, they're real.
Me: How much?
Salesperson: $200 and up.
Me: (staggered) I'm sorry, what?
Salesperson: Yup. $90 for the Game Boy, plus two games of your choice, plus our accessory kit, plus a two-year extended warranty.
Me: Can I just buy the Game Boy for $90?
Salesperson: No. It's our special package deal.
The following day, I went to a local non-chain place, and they had plenty of Game Boys in stock. I picked one up for $100, no strings attached. Nintendo may not have mandated these "bundles," but just about every chain store latched on.
Don't buy bundles, unless you like to get stuck with all sorts of stuff you don't want.
For more information, click here.
Oh, and I forgot to mention... We're going to buy up half your competitors (at least 5 in the last 2 years), then release new versions of their well-known old titles (Marathon, MechWarrior, etc.) for our new console and bundle those with it at a "discount" so you can't hope to compete with us. Have a nice day.
Now the console game publishers can find out how it feels to be a Microsoft developer. The Behemoth is doing to this industry what it keeps doing to its Windows patners - promising them the world and then slowly screwing them over by bundling competing products and eating away at their market. Why can't one of these companies figure this stuff out?
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
I just know MS has some kind of tie-in to eveything else planned for their Xbox, I don't know what it is yet, but hey've got something up their sleve.
I'm an old nintendohead, I got me a PS2 last week, it's good (I think Game Cube will be better), but it'll be better once I can boot a linux web-browsing terminal on my TV set. I predict having Linux compatability will become the norm and this will boost any console that can run Linux. This also means developers can develop games for Linux that run on consoles and PCs. Sorry MS, it's too late for you.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
http://www.gamestop.com/default.asp?sect=1160
You've got options... just don't buy it. I mean give me a break... it's not like their forcing you to install XP or something! They give you a bundle with some games, an extra controler, a memory card, and the DVD addon... all things that most consumers would be buying anyways. It's their console.. they could bundle a Kia with it if they want... just don't buy it. Hell.. I'm impressed that they have a bundle with *14* games avalible on release day in the first place. I am gonna buy one, i'll just wait till i find a bundle i like or just not get one. Tom
Tom the Sigless
The article doesn't seem to mention if Microsoft is giving bigger incentives for bigger packages. Are retailers creating $1200 bundles because it will get them better marketing, or because the retailers themselves want bigger sales? And did Sony do something similar for the Playstation 2 as well? I remember that up until a couple months after the PS2's launch, you couldn't seem to find a PS2 console without game bundles. Everyone wanted to sell their PS2s with three extra games, for $700 (Canadian.) The one or two stores that didn't bundle never had them in stock.
I always figured it was better for the retailer to sell bundles like this. "A PS2 by itself is no good; you're going to need to start your game library too. Why not buy them with us?" That's when I would say, "of course I need games, but the games I want aren't the ones you're trying to sell me. Can't I make my own bundle?" It made me wonder whether they had some marketing deal with some third party to bundle those specific games. It's obviously good for the retailer to entice you to buy your first games with them, but what's wrong with giving you a choice?
Remember when consoles came with a "free" game? That's how the Nintendo came to be forever linked with Mario, and Sega with Sonic. Some critics have pointed out that Playstation doesn't have an "identity," because it lacks its own character. But even the original Playstation came with a demo disc -- the PS2, the Dreamcast, the XBox, all come with nothing. After buying a Dreamcast, I had to pay for Sonic on top of that -- it seemed like a hidden price increase.
I think that alot of consumer bad will is going to be generated with such an obvious grab for profits. [I know that I am going to spend some time heckling sales people on the Xbox over the holidays.]
It isn't like Microsoft doesn't have an image problem in this area to start with.
[heheheh]
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"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ever think of it as a Mad Magazine reference?
(They used to always have $x.xx Cheap! next to their prices)
Lower sales for a criminal enterprise is a good thing.
Most market studies show, for the non-geek computer user (which is pretty much the entire PC market) people are tired of:
1) Incremental PC performace increases.
2) Expensive S/W and H/W upgrades every two years.
3) Arrogance on the part of S/W and H/W manufacturers along the lines of "...we deserve access to your pocketbook every two years".
People are tired of these ridiculous PC upgrade cycles.
The market is saturated. Most studies show that everyone who wants a PC already has one, and doesn't want to spend a lot of money on another.
Gaming? The game sales are off, it's lost it's luster. After Columbine, parents want their kids out riding a bike or playing with their friends, not zapping their eyes on lame FPS regurgitation.
Today's PCs are the 8-tracks of the future. Piece of shit boat anchors. $1200 for a throw-away, non-upgradble PC? That will be behind the performance curve the day it's released? In a down economy?
Families who may have just gotten layoff notices are going to send $1200 to a federally convicted monopolist, who is the richest man in the world?
Well, this is America. I guess it might be a big hit.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
When you go and auction that new XBox on eBay, will it get pulled because you are including copied of Microsoft software?
Or, if you return the console...will they force you to keep the games because they have been opened (despite the fact that you didn't open them)?
This is really quite a big mess. We have software and we have hardware. When you try to mix the two (unless you are including it free of course!) there are all kinds of sticky devlopments.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
just how many games does it come with?
Define "game". If "a game" is not defined, this number is subject to manipulation: is "Tetris & Dr. Mario" for Super NES one game or two? Worse, the games "Mario Party 2" and "Mario Party 3" for Nintendo 64 each include about 64 minigames. This way, vendors can claim that a $100 N64 console with three extra $30 controllers and $60 Mario Party 3 "Comes with 64 games!"
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Xbox is, after all, a repackaged PC, with about the same parts costs as a PC. The Xbox probably won't be profitable for another two years. From Microsoft's perspective, though, ownership of a new plaform two years out is worth some front-end losses.
In some ways, Microsoft is starting to slip. We're seeing more bad ideas out of Redmond, and more bad execution. Many of the Microsoft millionares are vested now, and have cashed out.
They have a brain drain problem. (At the low end, I'm seeing mis-picked shipments from Microsoft Spare Parts. I recently ordered two service packs on CD. The first time, I received instead a grey Microsoft Intellimouse instead.
On the second try, Microsoft sent me a 25 license pack of Windows 2000 Server. (I don't even run Windows servers.) Microsoft didn't used to screw up like that.)
I don't understand how there can be ``Loyal XBox fans'' when the console hasn't even been released.. What magic pixie dust does Microsoft have in order to get so many people hyped up about their console (which they announced two years in advance of release -- something many companies are not allowed to do)
Here's the thing... let's say Merchant A has the $499 version, and Merchant B has the $1200 version which comes with all kinds of 'neat' toys that M$ thinks we want. Anyone who doesn't want some or all of the toys bundled with the $1200 version is going to go buy the $499 one assuming it's available. I mean, there are several types of games I personally loathe. I can't stand racing or football video games, so if any of those come bundled with the $1200 version (or let's face it, any version) I'm not going to buy it. I'd much rather have the option of buying the bare-bones system and picking up anything else I need as I need it.
M$ thinks it is providing more options, but what they are doing is limiting the number of bare-bones systems by bundling other goods. Doesn't matter if the best game in the world (YMMV) is in there, someone will not like it and go elsewhere. So how does this help the vendors selling the XBOXes? Do they try and buy a couple of each 'version' or do they stick with one and hope to hell it sells?
Am I surprised by M$ doing this? Hell no. They seem to think that they are the best judges of what everyone wants already, so it's not a shock to see them applying this to the XBOX. I'm just wondering how many vendors will end up stripping the bundled stuff out to sell the bare-bones systems to recoup some money. Or do they have the option of sending them back? (I only ask that because in a lot of stores, especially bookstores, product that doesn't sell gets shelved or destroyed...)
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Nope, Dreamcast has CE built in if games want to use it, but my understanding is that almost no games use it and instead use all of their own routines to handle hardware interfacing and OS type tasks.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Nope - the DC is Windows CE Compatible. CE is on the GD-ROM and boots up after the bootstrap process occures.
Easy as
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
It worked for Office(tm).. and IE... and Media Player...
This is standard MS tactics. The only difference is that MS doesn't hold a monopoly here, so it's legal this time.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
And Rare isn't part of Nintendo and has always struggled against their mold.
It takes time to turn a company around. Nintendo is still, by and large, rated G.
I fail to understand the problem here.
What was the problem with Microsoft bundling IE with Windows and offering volume discounts to OEMs? Because they had a monopoly on certain classes of software. What they did was perfectly legal, ethical and moral if performed by any smaller company.
But Microsoft does not have a monopoly on game consoles.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Seems like the anti-Microsoft sentiment here is starting to cloud everyone's judgement.
Retailers often require that you buy games with a new console to protect themselves. This is because, besides the fact that Microsoft is losing a significant amount of money on each console, there is usually very little to no store markup on these systems. Given that most people buy these systems with credit cards, the retailer is sure to lose money selling a standalone console. On top of this, most of these people buying consoles at a loss to the retailer are the ones who are putting them on ebay and making a mean profit. Its just not fair.
So, to boil it all down, selling packages like this is nothing new, and it protects the retailer probably more than it does Microsoft.
"MS is the type of company who as of right now probably knows within +/- 5% what the demand is, what the poor/average/rich person will pay for it, what the average 'early' adopter will pay for it, and what the average late adopter will pay for it."
WHOA! Duude...here are some "ad hoc" "nonofficial" numbers according to a # of my friends up in Rancho Redmond...BEWARE: YMMV...
1. MS' projected demand for W2K is off by around 30%, much/most of this NOT accounted for by the demand inversion
2. MS' projected demand for W/ME was supposedly off by between 30%-40%, and a large factor that (along with a record number of non-projected support problems) led to its being pulled as part of the Official "Upgrade Path"
3. Deployment of AD is ***OVER*** 50% off projection, and is particularly poor with some of MS' historical "early adopters" and "key partners"
4. Demand for the new WinCe is also reportedly well below projection, though no one's mentioned to me a credible sounding number
5. And let's not forget O2K, where demand is alleged 30%-40% below Worst Case, and by rumour, His Billness and His Steveness got "down and dirty" on the O2K marketing team????
While I have no way of certifying the above numbers, the fact is that MS spokesgeeks have acknowledged the above statements without having provided quantities.
you seem to belong to the "MS is God!" School.
MS has historically (like ALL Tech Companies) always overstated intial demand....Windows95 was the one exception to that, and MS ***HASN'T HAD*** a hit like that since, God, what year was W ***95*** again???...though i've had senior Softies tell me that "for sure" W2K was gonna be...it wasn't, it's been the most disappointing Office release in some time..
"I don't expect MS to make the same low-supply mistakes as Sony"
BONUS ROUND: many industry insiders speculated that the PS2 shortage could have been planned/intentional "market manipulation" by Sony trying to enhance both mid-term PS2 demand and beat the amazing amount of media buzz that "Dreamcast" rec'd...some think it could have also been a way to "Pump Prime" the marker in America and freeze Nintendo/Dreamcast sales for a few months????...
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
What would have me worried would be Microsoft selling the XBox for $149, paying a $50 trade-in for existing consoles (to reduce the user base), and giving away a bunch of games. All that they are doing with this kind of predatory pricing is convincing parents that their kids can make do with the existing Sony/Sega/Nintendo/whatever console.
Moderators, please note:
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negative portayal of Bill Gates and Microsoft
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Taken in total, those things must be worth a karma point or two.
Unfortuantely Microsoft is learning the lessons of 3DO the hard way. When first introduced, the Panasonic 3DO console had a price tag of $800, sans software. At launch there were very few software titles available, and even fewer "must have" games. While Microsoft sems aware that very few people will pay more than $299 for a console machine, bundling these machines with multiple games which may or may not be good is ludicrous. The only reason I can see for bundling a console with a game nowadays (outside of pack-in games) are games that require special controllers like gun-games or driving games. If this isn't their strategy, and Microsoft is just bundling for the ske of bundling, they're in for some stiff competition when the Game Cube arrives, and Sony gears up for ther Christmas promotions.
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Please judge XBox for XBox. The bundle deal encouraging Microsoft titles would only be anti-competitive if these titles were available for other systems. There are two viable other choices, and XBox, PS2, and GameCube sales will reflect what people want.
What we have here is a Playstation One vs. Jaguar vs. 3DO situation all over again. Which will be the Jag? You decide.
Does anyone know if Sony is expected to lower the price of the PlayStation 2 once Xbox and gamecube are released? And if so, to what price point.
"When we came up with the program, we wanted it to be what's best for retailers," Microsoft spokesman James Bernard said. "This is based on what retailers told us they wanted."
Hmmm, so the retailers are going to be sitting home with a couple of million X-Boxes playing those lovely bundled games. Oh, wait, the retailers are the middlemen not the customers...
And then Microsoft can talk about how many millions of copies of "Virtual Paint Dyring" they've sold for the X-Box. Watch MS talk up its "Hot Selling" titles without ever mentioning that they were the price of admission.
Pimp: How'd you do??
Whore: Great, and all the guys really love this dress.
Pimp: Hunh? How do you know they like the dress??
Whore: Because I wouldn't sleep with them until they said they liked it.
The saddest part of all of this is that Jane and Joe MidAmerica have gotten too used to being screwed by large corps. and will most likely buy into this BS too. And to be fair, If my kid just wouldn't shut up about the darn thing, I'd probably cave and buy it eventually and principles be damned.
I can think of a relevant little saying that went around the holler when I was a yung'un: Just because there was a shotgun to your head doesn't mean you ain't married.
~Hammy
Heck, a crappy deal on an unproven console might help the competition for a while. Hard to say. But it is a fact that MS has a significant amount of competition in the game console market, very much unlike the desktop market.
I wish people would chill with the claims of "unfair tactics" and simply notice that this is common when a company moves into a new industry, before economies-of-scale kick in for manufacturing... All console manufacturers (Nintendo especially) have bundled games to help initial profits for new console projects.
"Microsoft's games carry higher profit margins for the Redmond, Wash., company than those published by third-party companies such as Activision Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc."
Which is why it's SUICIDE for established game companies to program for the X-Box. Microsoft, in effect, will be using them to kill themselves. We all know that whenever MS enters any market, be it word processors or web browsers, they do it for the sole purpose of leveraging all their other might to "embrace, extend, extinguish" any and all competition. To me, it makes no sense for a game company to waste effort on programming for a rival software company when there are already viable alternatives, like Sony and Nintendo. If they wouldn't do games for X-Box, it will fail.
Fortunately, in the case of game software, MS's own history is against it. Though MS has produced a decent game here and there, they are FAR from the dominant player on the PC platform. This is because to have a megahit game title REQUIRES innovation. The real thing, not that word that MS, in Princess Bride fashion, continues to misuse. MS has always been an imitative, not innovative company.
Even the games that they have had success with (Age of Empires, etc) were imitations of products already on the market. They won't be able to get away with always being months behind whatever is "new and hip" in the console market, ergo, why they need the third party game companies on their side.
Also, it remains to be seen as to whether the X-Box will be a success. Will game console users, who so far are largely BSOD free, tolerate MS bugs? Since the X-Box is running Windows, it's not likely to be any more stable than any other PC running Windows, though the advantage of supporting only ONE hardware configuration will add stability that the average `Doze box won't have.
Which is perhaps what the X-Box has most against it... It's basically a non-upgradable `Doze PC in a game console box. Which means that it will quickly fall behind the conventional PC in power and capability.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
But this has got to be the stupidest move they've ever done, quite possibly the stupidest thing any marketing deparment has ever done in the history of marketing.
I mean, let's look at this: In the coming three-way console war, there is little if anything to distinguish the systems. Sure, GameCube doesn't allow DVD playback, but I think the ability to play HDTV-resolution games out of the box (something I read in the latest Popular Science) helps make things more even. Beyond that, the three hardware platforms are more or less within spitting distance of each other.
But of the three, the XBox is gearing to be the most expensive of the three options. Even without this new "deal" they got going, PS2 has been in production long enough to justify a price cut around XBox launch time, Nintendo doesn't have to bribe the DVD-CCA, and the XBox price has to cover that hard drive.
Because the three consoles are pretty much neck and neck, the best they can do is win the software war: The winner will be the one that has games only for their system that will make people want to buy that system. Of the three, only Nintendo really has in-house coders that can pull this off, and even they'll need help this time around. Everybody should be scrambling to throw money at third parties to develop exclusively for their system and their system alone.
Instead, the folks at Microsoft now pretty much insist that you buy the system bundled with first- and second-party games. Aside from the fact that this essentially drives up the cost of the system more, customers aren't going to have much money left to buy third-party games. While this tactic might be profitable for Microsoft in the short-term, third-party publishers stand to lose money by having games ready for system release, and that ultimately hurts Microsoft hardware sales in the long term.
What in God's name are they thinking?!? They're setting themselves up to hemorrhage cash at a time when they should be shoring up for a possible XP injunction in the US and/or EU.
Let me try to be impartial for a moment. Even though my violent gut instict is that they have no chance in hell of surviving in the console market longer than Dreamcast, maybe they have a chance. After all, they took over so many other software markets from their competitors. But how could they pull this off?
They could try giving away their new software for free, much like they did with IE. However, that $500 to $1200 price tag doesn't exactly have "free games" written all over it.
They could try using a marketing blitz to get name recognition for their games. Well, I'm a video game junkie, I know upcoming GameCube and PS2 games, but I can't name a single XBox-exclusive game. Sure, there is a marketing blitz in place pushing the console, but if I can't name a game for the system, I'm not sure it's all that effective.
They could try absorbing a good, well-known third-party game company into the Microsoft fold. But the pending console war makes it much more profitable for a third-party publisher to be hardware-agnostic. The more systems they publish for, the more likely they're going to sell.
Finally, they could try writing the best damned games on the planet. But even then, they'd have one heck of an uphill climb simply because they'd have to prove themselves. Everybody knows Nintendo, Konami, Capcom, SNK, Sega, and all those other big names in the industry make good games. Microsoft is more of an unknown than anything else.
And I haven't even touched on things like how the PS2 sold better as a DVD player than a game console on launch, how Microsoft's UltimateTV set-top box still needed to be patched, how Microsoft has neither Zelda or Final Fantasy...
So what the heck were they thinking? Is there some sort of Master Plan that I'm missing here, some sort of Byzantine, Illuminati-ish conspiracy involved that will help them more systems? I mean, they can't be THAT stupid... can they?
Yes, bundling is done. Like, I have to get one game with PS2 and so on. Adds about 10% to the price of the box. And, why would I buy the console without a game? As far as I can pick the game, it's OK.
;)
However, "everyone" is not going to force You to buy extras worth twice the price of the barebones system. I don't need to get a second controller, wheel and pedals, and three games someone else chose for me when I buy the PS2.
And guess what? I will buy the consoles due to games. That is, I don't have a PS2, as the games I want it for weren't out when I last visited gaming stores. When they are, I'll happily get the games I want in the bundle with the PS2 - perhaps I'll even save a dollar or two in the deal..
That phenomenon where you relase a copmputer product at a loss to sell soemthing else, and Slashdot bankrupts you by teaching everyone how to turn it into a Linux sevrer or workstation.
:)
Not that I'm against it in this particular case. In fact, I think Sun should create a special "Solaris-x86 8 Install Disc for XBox" and gvie it away
I work in Electronics at a Walmart. We're actually selling quite a few of the Gran Turismo 3 PS2 bundles alongside the standard PS2 systems. Granted, it's just a single game added for about $10 cheaper total, but those red and black boxes it comes in are just cool looking. :)
It may be even worse for MS than you suggest. My perception of Sony, which may be fairly typical, is "large Japanese company that produces very high-quality electronics at reasonable prices." I don't think very many people associate the word "quality" with Microsoft.
Double quoting: Loyal Xbox fans will have to dole out hundreds of dollars more than they expected to secure an Xbox. ;^)
This made me think "oh my god, Xbox is going to run IIS and the patches will cost money! We're doomed!". Heh. English is cool.
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if I didn't know the difference between an adapter sold seperately (or add on), as opposed to included equipment. But thanks for confirming my information.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I think we can quit worrying about X-Box at this point. Hell, this type of desperation move suggests we maybe can stop worrying about _Microsoft_ at this point. For them to switch to full-on cash-vacuum mode THIS EARLY in a new market is horribly revealing. It's not about arrogance, either.
We are viewing the spectacle of a Microsoft desperate for money.
I'd love to see an audit of what they _really_ have. I would lay 50% odds that right now their liabilities exceed their assets- and 60% odds that their much touted cash reserves are a _lie_. Look at their actions! Are these the actions of a company that can afford to dump product to gain a new market against stiff competition? Since when was Microsoft stupid about competitive threats? This isn't about arrogance at all. This is desperation, and they are in trouble. And not competitive trouble- _cash_ trouble.
I wonder at what point will they be unable to meet payroll and their financial obligations except by accounting trickery- or perhaps this has already happened?
Because you really need rust-proofing applied by the retail middle-man.
And floor mats. And pinstripes for $100 each. And accidental death and dismemberment insurance. And an 8-track.
$1200 sounds like quite a good deal when you add in all of these essentials. So quit complaining.
Plus, he owes me money... So he better not be getting an XBox before I do...
EGearman
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!